investors

HOUSTON, Feb 19, 2009 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE:CCI) announced today that, effective immediately, the Board of Directors has promoted James D. Young, President -- Tower Operations, to Chief Operating Officer, a currently vacant position.

Mr. Young was appointed President -- Tower Operations in October 2005 and has nearly 25 years of experience in the telecom industry. Before joining Crown Castle, Mr. Young served as the Region Vice President -- Engineering & Operations at Sprint Nextel Corp.

"I would like to congratulate Jim on this well-deserved promotion. Jim did a tremendous job leading the organization through the integration of the Global Signal acquisition and has been instrumental in improving our industry-leading customer service. He has shown great leadership in creating efficiency gains in our processes and has effectively deployed technology to scale our business," stated Ben Moreland, President and Chief Executive Officer of Crown Castle.

Crown Castle owns, operates, and leases towers and other communication structures for wireless communications. Crown Castle offers significant wireless communications coverage to 91 of the top 100 U.S. markets and to substantially all of the Australian population. Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 22,000 and approximately 1,600 wireless communication sites in the U.S. and Australia, respectively. For more information on Crown Castle, please visit http://www.crowncastle.com.

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SOURCE: Crown Castle International Corp.

Crown Castle International Corp.
          Jay Brown, CFO
          Fiona McKone, VP - Finance
          713-570-3000