NEW YORK CITY—Continuing its push toward wireless and monetizing non-core assets, Verizon Communications said Thursday afternoon it would sell its local wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas to Frontier Communications Corp. for approximately $10.54 billion. Simultaneously, the telecommunications giant said it would sell the leasing rights for 11,234 cell-phone towers to American Tower Corp., a $5.1-billion deal that also entails the REIT acquiring 165 additional towers from Verizon.

“Our longstanding strategy has been to consistently invest in our networks, improve our customers' experience and develop new products and services while delivering profitable growth,” says Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. “These transactions will further strengthen Verizon's focus on extending our industry leadership position in our core markets and return significant value to our shareholders.”

For Boston-based AMT, the deal expands its portfolio to 40,000-plus cell towers across the US. “The Verizon tower portfolio is a unique asset,” says Jim Taiclet, AMT's CEO. Thanks to what he calls “outstanding design and management by the Verizon Wireless network operations team,” the portfolio boasts attributes that will facilitate “robust leasing opportunities.” Among them are average tower heights approaching 200 feet, “ample structural capacity and ground space, very attractive transmission locations with relatively few competing sites, a solid ground lease profile and excellent documentation and technical information.”

Under terms of its deal with Verizon, AMT will have the exclusive right to lease and operate the towers for a weighted average term of 28 years. In addition, the REIT will have fixed-price purchase options to acquire the towers based on their anticipated fair market values at the end of the lease terms.

The sale to Stamford, CT-based Frontier, which includes the assumption of $600 million in debt, will expand its footprint in key markets. The network it's acquiring supports 3.7 million voice connections, 2.2 million broadband connections and 1.2 million FiOS video connections, and is 54% FiOS enabled.

Frontier's 2010 merger with a spin-off of Verizon's local exchange business gave it FiOS capacity in four markets, “and a high level of familiarity with the systems underlying these properties,” says president and COO Dan McCarthy. “We plan to flash-cut convert these properties to Frontier's systems, as we did in states including West Virginia and Connecticut.”