However, the deal will delay Verizon's ability to achieve its leverage target. Credit rating agency Fitch expects Verizon's leverage ratio to be around 2.3 times by the time it closes the Frontier acquisition next year. It will then jump back up into the mid-2.0 times range before steadily falling back toward its long-term target.

Verizon Communications Inc., the biggest wireless carrier in the US, has agreed to sell the rights to lease thousands of mobile phone towers to digital infrastructure firm Vertical Bridge.