Canadian company Tower One Wireless has expanded its presence in Latin America, with 14 new sites built for telecom operators in Colombia and Ecuador in December.

In 2022, the group built a total of 172 towers in its main markets of Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. This work reached its peak in August, when 26 new towers were installed.

With this, Tower One has reached 348 towers in these three countries, with 382 tenants for these sites. “Tenants” refers to the number of customer leases per tower. For example, a customer renting space in five towers counts as five tenants.

In December, Tower One said it had built seven towers each in Colombia and Ecuador, all in BTS (built-to-suit) format. All plots have a lease term of 10 years and were completely new projects. They are distributed in urban and rural areas.

The new towers in Colombia were installed in Nuqui, Litoral del San Juan, Nóvita and Bajo Baudo (Chocó department), Ituango and Taraza (Antioquia) and Valle del Cauca (Cali department).

In Ecuador, all mobilized in the province of Guayas, in the cities of Durán, Daule, Samborondon and in the provincial capital Guayaquil.

In addition to the 14 new towers delivered in the custom-built format, Tower One also announced that it has completed construction of six towers in both markets in the built-as-a-service model.

In this format, Tower One provides end-to-end operations for clients, from site acquisition to onboarding.

The group’s main customers are Telefónica, which owns approximately 38% of its sites, WOM Colombia (31%), Millicom’s Tigo Colombia (24%), Mexico’s Altán Redes (4%), Claro Colombia (3%) and DirecTV. Columbia (1%).

Other customers include AT&T in Mexico and CNT in Ecuador.

During the second quarter of 2022, the company received a loan of $2.66 million from a local bank in Ecuador, of which $1.95 million is expected to be used for expansion in the country. The loan is unsecured and bears interest at 11% per annum.