Leases (Notes)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2019

Leases

The following information is presented with respect to the Company's tenant contracts that are subject to the new lease accounting standard and excludes those contracts outside the scope of that standard.

Lessor Tenant Leases

See note 5 for further information regarding the contractual amounts owed to the Company pursuant to tenant contracts in effect as of December 31, 2019 and other information.

Lessee Operating Leases

The components of the Company's operating lease expense are as follows:



	Year Ended December 31,
	2019
Lease cost:
Operating lease expense^(a)	$	648
Variable lease expense^(b)	133
Total lease expense^(c)	$	781


(a)	Represents the Company's operating lease expense related to its ROU assets for the twelve months ended December 31, 2019.


(b)	Represents the Company's expense related to contingent payments for operating leases (such as payments based on revenues derived from the communications infrastructure located on the leased asset) for the twelve months ended December 31, 2019. Such contingencies are recognized as expense in the period they are resolved.


(c)	Excludes those direct operating expenses accounted for pursuant to accounting guidance outside the scope of ASC 842.

Lessee Finance Leases

The vast majority of the Company's finance leases are related to the towers subject to prepaid master lease agreements with AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile and are recorded as "Property and equipment, net" on the consolidated balance sheet. See note 1 for

further discussion of the Company's prepaid master lease agreements and note 3 for further information regarding the Company's adoption method of the new lease standard. Finance leases and associated leasehold improvements related to gross property and equipment and accumulated depreciation were $4.4 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively, as of December 31, 2019. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2019, the Company recorded $216 million to "Depreciation, amortization and accretion" related to finance leases.

Other Lessee Information

As of December 31, 2019, the Company's weighted-average remaining lease term and weighted-average discount rate for operating leases were 17 years and 4.3%, respectively.

The following table is a summary of the Company's maturities of operating lease liabilities as of December 31, 2019:



	Years Ending December 31,
	2020		2021		2022		2023		2024		Thereafter		Total undiscounted lease payments		Less: Imputed interest			Total operating lease liabilities
Operating leases^(a)	$	534	$	528	$	524	$	520	$	517	$	6,357	$	8,980	$	(3,170	)	$	5,810


(a)	Excludes the Company's contingent payments for operating leases (such as payments based on revenues derived from the communications infrastructure located on the leased asset) as such arrangements are excluded from the Company's operating lease liability. Such contingencies are recognized as expense in the period they are resolved.

Comparative Information from 2018 Form 10-K

The Company adopted ASC 842 using a modified retrospective approach as of the effective date, without adjusting the comparative periods and therefore, as required by ASC 842, has included the following comparative information from note 14 to the consolidated financial statements in its 2018 Form 10-K.

The operating lease payments included in the table below include payments for certain renewal periods exercisable at the Company's option that are deemed reasonably assured to be exercised and an estimate of contingent payments based on revenues and gross margins derived from existing tenant leases.



	Years Ending December 31,
	2019		2020		2021		2022		2023		Thereafter		Total
Operating leases	$	640	$	631	$	628	$	623	$	619	$	8,054	$	11,195