Verizon and its infrastructure partner Crown Castle have settled a year-long legal battle with Doylestown, Pennsylvania over 5G wireless hardware, agreeing to adjust their hardware deployment plans and share revenues with the town. The settlement was reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer today, illuminating local challenges that cellular carriers continue to face as they race to roll out next-generation wireless technology across large territories.

Although 5G is just beginning to receive mainstream attention, carriers have spent years laying the groundwork for 5G network upgrades, including plans to deploy “small cells” required for higher-speed cellular service. Small cells can be as small as a laptop or as large as a pizza box, and are generally mounted on utility poles 15 to 20 feet in the air. While well-known carriers including Verizon and AT&T pay for the small cells, infrastructure companies such as Crown Castle actually install and manage the hardware across multiple poles.

According to the report, Crown Castle reached out to Doylestown in 2014 with preliminary installation plans on Verizon’s behalf, ultimately submitting applications for 44 initial small cells in October 2016. The borough balked at the overwhelming collection of documents submitted by Crown Castle and denied the applications. Crown Castle responded with state and federal lawsuits.