Summary

  • Both large spectrum sales have closed: $1.018 billion in cash to New Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC, an AT&T subsidiary, on 13 January 2026, and $1.0 billion to Verizon on 1 June 2026, funding $1.836737 billion of special dividends at $21.25 a share.
  • What remains under the T-Mobile Master License Agreement is a split tenancy: a 2,015-site commitment on a minimum fifteen-year term where the convenience termination right does not apply, about 600 renewed colocations, and roughly 1,800 interim sites T-Mobile may cancel tower by tower through January 2028.

The two big spectrum sales are done. Array Digital Infrastructure, Inc. closed the sale of select spectrum assets to New Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC, an AT&T subsidiary, on 13 January 2026 at a purchase price of $1.018 billion paid in cash, and declared a $10.25 per-share special cash dividend after that closing (SEC Form 8-K, 13 January 2026). The Verizon transaction closed on 1 June 2026 at total consideration of $1.0 billion, with an $11.00 per-share special dividend declared after the closing; the same release recorded $168 million of T-Mobile spectrum sales that had already closed in May 2026 (SEC Form 8-K exhibit, 1 June 2026).

Add the two payouts and the total is $21.25 a share: $885.5 million at $10.25 and $951.3 million at $11.00, or $1.836737 billion, against no regular cash dividends in prior periods. For the nine months ended 30 September 2026, cash received from divestitures was $2.185801 billion and dividends paid to shareholders were $1.836737 billion, while continuing-operations operating cash flow was negative $188.191 million. Book gains of $156.6 million on the AT&T transaction and $408.9 million on the Verizon transaction sit in the Form 10-Q filed on 6 November 2026 (Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 September 2026), the filing EDGAR lists under CIK 0000821130 (EDGAR filing index).

That arithmetic is the story. The dividend was funded by selling assets, not by operating them. At 30 September 2026 the company reported $233.568 million of cash and equivalents against $113.400 million at 31 December 2025, $99.9 million of unused revolving-credit capacity and $323.0 million of term-loan borrowings. No shares were repurchased during the quarter, leaving 658,107 shares on the authorisation.

The company describes itself more modestly than as a carrier. Array Digital Infrastructure is the renamed United States Cellular Corporation, calls itself an owner and operator of shared wireless communications infrastructure with more than 4,400 towers, is headquartered in Chicago and is an 82%-owned subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (Array Digital Infrastructure investor relations).

That is the shape of a landlord. The risk now lives in the tenancy, and the tenancy has two halves that behave nothing alike.

On the first half, the T-Mobile Master License Agreement covers a minimum commitment of 2,015 additional Array-owned towers for a minimum fifteen-year term, and it extended the licence term on approximately 600 existing T-Mobile colocations on Array towers to a new fifteen-year term beginning 1 August 2025. For those committed sites the agreement's convenience termination right does not apply during the initial fifteen years. Afterwards T-Mobile may exit an individual site with at least 180 days' notice and a fee equal to twelve months of the then-current licence fee, and each licence may extend for up to four additional five-year terms unless T-Mobile gives timely nonrenewal notice (Master License Agreement exhibit, filed 4 August 2025).

On the second half, roughly 1,800 towers sit on an interim basis. That interim lease runs 30 months, T-Mobile may cancel the interim leases at its option on a tower-by-tower basis at any time, and Array expects the revenue to decline as terminations proceed through the integration period ending January 2028. Interim-lease revenue was $4.9 million in the third quarter of 2026 and $19.8 million for the nine months.

Those two numbers carry more information than the headline payout. Nine months at $19.8 million implies $14.9 million in the first half, or roughly $7.45 million a quarter; the third quarter delivered $4.9 million. On that arithmetic the interim book has already contracted by about a third between the first half and the third quarter, which makes the decommissioning a line item rather than a forecast. Spread the third-quarter figure across 1,800 towers and T-Mobile is paying on the order of $900 a tower a month for the sites it has not yet dropped.

Then weigh what "committed" actually buys. The same agreement permits one-for-one substitution of designated committed sites with interim new sites until the earlier of 30 months after the effective date or completion of integration at the committed site, and it allows the commitment to be reduced in specified circumstances, including certain missing third-party consents. A commitment that can be swapped site for site during the integration window, and trimmed when consents fail, is a floor with maintenance conditions attached rather than a wall.

The paperwork still in motion is small change. After the May 2026 closings, approximately $30 million of T-Mobile 600 MHz and 700 MHz transactions remained; they received regulatory approval on 7 October 2026 and were expected to close in 2026 subject to FCC finality and other customary closing conditions. The same third-quarter earnings release reports adjusted free cash flow from continuing operations of negative $161.996 million for the nine months and describes that measure as non-GAAP and not an indicator of cash flows (Form 8-K exhibit, third-quarter 2026 earnings release). On the company's own framing, the residual business does not generate cash.

Three gaps in the record matter. The filing does not break out tenancy from carriers other than T-Mobile, so nobody outside the company can measure how diversified the committed book really is. Tower-level operating costs, ground-lease obligations and any decommissioning liability that attaches when interim sites go dark are not disclosed. And nothing in the retained record describes a re-leasing, repurposing or disposal programme for towers T-Mobile hands back; the January 2028 endpoint is a company expectation about T-Mobile's integration, not a contractual certainty.

What is left is a fifteen-year rent roll on 2,015 committed sites plus the extended colocations, carried with $323.0 million of term debt, beside a shrinking interim tail on roughly 1,800 towers that no public document yet explains how to fill. The next spectrum cheque is worth about $30 million. The lease is worth billions, and the tenant holds the cancel button (BTW directory record).