‘Infrastructure sharing will become a necessity’

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Gold the most preferred investment

: For telecom to penetrate the Indian hinterland and for telcom companies to arrest their sliding margins, sharing of infrastructure has gained paramount importance. Also, there is serious moneyto be made in the business. Realising the same, telecom companies have begun hiving off their infrastructure businesses into seperate companies, Essar being the latest example. It is in this scenario, that GTL Limited has emerged as a serious cotender in the Indian market. Taneesha Kulshrestha talks to GTL Limited Chairman & MD, Manoj Tirodkar to find out the company’s future plans.

What does infrastructure sharing mean for the telecom sector and what opportunity does it present GTL?

In India, vast geographic area, low (and falling) marginal ARPUs and an intensely competitive marketplace make sharing of passive cell-site infrastructure almost a necessity. As per TRAI, 240,000 additional towers would be needed to support another 300 mn subscribers by December-2010. As per our estimate an average tenancy of “2x” per tower could save conservatively $3-4bn in capex for the whole industry.

This could translate to a saving of $500 mn for each of the major players over the next three to four years. Additionally, huge pre-operations costs, O & M costs and Management Bandwidth would be freed through this process.

GTL Limited deploys 16,000 cell sites across 25 countries for more than 35 operators. We hope to add offer expertise to the Indian market and benefit from the same.

What are your revenue expectations from the same?

The passive infrastructure concept is at a nascent stage in India, though it is a very matured model in advanced countries like USA. That said; many operators are experiencing this model either with neutral service providers like GTL Infrastructure Ltd or by hiving off their assets in a separate infrastructure company of their own. Business models are getting established gradually.

How many sites do you have at present and what is your target? What investment do you plan for the same?

By April 2007, GTL INFRA will have 1,200 towers. The Company plans to have 6,700 towers by March 2008.

Will you be constructing extensively in rural areas as well? What will be the share of rural areas in total expenditure outlay?