public traded as nyse amt s & p 500 component industry diversified communication services founded 1995 headquarters boston massachusetts u.s. key people james d. taiclet jr. chairman ceo & president revenue us 3.361 billion 2013 1 us 2.875 billion 2012 1 operating income us 1.214 billion 2013 1 us 1.119 billion 2012 1 net income us 551.333 million 2013 1 us 637.283 million 2012 1 total assets us 20.272 billion 2013 2 us 14.089 billion 2012 1 total equity us 3.590 billion 2013 2 us 3.684 billion 2012 2 number of employees 3 300 2016 website www.americantower.com american tower wireless tower belleville mi . former at & t long lines tower . american tower corporation is a publicly held company owner and operator of wireless and broadcast communications infrastructure in several countries . american tower is headquartered in boston massachusetts and has local offices worldwide . the company was formed in 1995 as a unit of american radio systems and was spun off from that company in 1998 when that company merged with cbs corporation . following the merger american tower began international expansion by establishing operations in mexico in 1998 and brazil in 1999 . the company is structured as a real estate investment trust . in 2005 american tower merged with spectrasite communications inc. expanding its global portfolio to over 22 000 owned communications sites including over 21 000 wireless towers 400 broadcast towers and 100 in building das distributed antenna system sites . the merger further established american tower s position as one of the largest tower owner and operators in north america . between 2007 and 2012 american tower s international growth continued with operations in india peru chile colombia south africa ghana and uganda . in 2013 american tower acquired global tower partners . this acquisition added sites to their u.s. portfolio and added operations in costa rica and panama . currently american tower owns and operates over 100 000 sites in 13 countries . soon after american tower was founded the company began purchasing numerous at & t long lines microwave telephone relay towers . upon acquisition of these sites from the now defunct at & t communications inc. american tower began repurposing the towers for use as cell towers and leasing antenna space to various american cell phone providers and private industries . then most of the former at & t long lines sites had their horn reflector antennas removed either by helicopter or by crane to make room for more antennas . since at & t s long lines program was decommissioned in the 1980s and the company no longer had any use for the towers themselves american tower now owns most of these tower structures across the entire continental united states . the picture below depicts a former at & t long lines microwave radio relay tower now repurposed by american tower corporation . references edit a b c d e f g american tower corp ma 2013 annual report form 10 k xbrl . united states securities and exchange commission . february 26 2014 . a b c american tower corp ma 2014 q1 quarterly report form 10 q xbrl . united states securities and exchange commission . may 1 2014 . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title american tower corporation & oldid 741023636 categories companies listed on the new york stock exchangecompanies established in 1995 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages fran ais svenska edit links this page was last modified on 24 september 2016 at 22 02 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view