US tower operator Crown Castle has outlined its ambitions to expand its current tower portfolio across the US.

The company hinted that it could also look at opportunities in other markets outside its US base.

The comments were made by Dan Schlanger, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Crown Castle, during this week's Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference.

"We love the tower business, and would love to expand our footprint in the US," said Schlanger, as seen on Seeking Alpha. "The issue that has held us back is price.

"We have a view of what the growth rate is for these assets that are being sold and have been sold in the US over time. When we look at that growth, we have not seen sufficient amount to justify the price that's being paid to generate a return that would attract our capital."

Crown Castle currently operates more than 40,000 tower sites across the country. Schlanger noted that the company has chosen not to pursue recent market opportunities.

In June, the company seemingly ruled itself out from snapping up tower assets from Verizon, which has been heavily linked with a sale of up to 6,000 telecom towers.

Schlanger added that Crown Castle wouldn't rule out markets outside of the US. The tower operator has been exclusively a domestically-focused firm after it sold its Australian assets to Macquarie Group for $1.6 billion in 2015.

"I would love to buy towers in the US, it would be great. As long as it's a good return, we'd be all over it. We would buy towers in developed countries across the world. I don't think we would ever go into emerging markets, but developed countries make a lot of sense."

During the talk this week, Schlanger briefly addressed the company's strategic fiber review, noting that the process is still ongoing and there's no update on this.

It was reported in April that Crown Castle was in talks with multiple parties over a sale of its fiber and small cells business.

Small cells growth

As the name suggests, small cells are much more compact than typical telecom towers which can be anything between 50-300 ft (15-91m). They are often located on existing structures, such as lampposts or buildings, and tend to blend in more discreetly than tower structures.

Crown Castle currently operates around 120,000 small cells on air or under contract to go on air. The company has increasingly identified small cells as a big growth area for the business, as it becomes harder to deploy new towers.

On the subject of spectrum allocation, Schlanger stated that as spectrum availability dries up, it makes small cell deployment more of an attractive proposition.

"I think it [small cells] does give us an avenue for differentiated growth in the US," he said. "And the lack of spectrum, in my opinion, leads to more small cells faster, because they can't go back and do the thing they like to do, which is take the spectrum and add it to towers they already have.

"They have to take the spectrum they have and densify it. And that has to end up in small cells, which I think will ultimately be a good thing for us."