px_eliezer_ A lot of people just DO NOT KNOW, however, about the alternatives such as Visible, Consumer Cellular, Cricket, Mint, or the lesser knowns such as US Mobile.
They advertise pretty heavily. I see TV and online ads for Visible all the time.
But I agree that people being locked into device installment plans is a major factor.
px_eliezer_ And beyond that…the big carriers mostly don’t run their own towers either these days.
They operate their own equipment on those towers. It doesn’t really matter who owns the physical towers themselves, they’re just leasing space to the carriers like a landlord.
A “cell site” doesn’t have to be a tower either, it can be put on a rooftop of a building, on top of an existing telephone pole, hidden in a church steeple, etc.
You’d be surprised sometimes where they hide them.
It’s actually pretty common for churches to have cell towers hidden in their steeples, especially around the northeastern US.
