Bharti Airtel, on multiple occasions now, have said that sharing of telecom infrastructure is important. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, during the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2021, reiterated that while adding new subscribers faster than the competition is important, the telcos also need to start working together. From this, Mittal meant that the telcos need to be able to see the larger picture and start sharing telecom infrastructure with each other. Mittal said that there’s duplication in telecom infrastructure in towers, fiber, and more. Thus it would be a good thing to share telecom infra.
What Does Sharing Telecom Infra Really Mean?
In simple words, telecom infrastructure sharing would mean that one telco pays the other telco some amount as the cost for using the already developed telecom infrastructure. So this will reduce the overall amount that a company would require to invest in its networks and also speed up the rollout of new services. Sunil Bharti Mittal has been in the telecom industry for a long time now. The business tycoon has seen almost every high and low of the telecom sector and has helped Airtel successfully survive through it. The point about telecom infrastructure sharing from Mittal is a very sensible one. Because companies like Vodafone Idea, which do not have a lot of money to invest into network infrastructure very rapidly can leverage the other telco’s infra to provide services for a nominal cost. The other company would also be able to generate more money out of the developed infrastructure which would add to its profits. Especially in India, where the telcos have very low average revenue per user (ARPU) but have to make very huge investments to cater to the needs of a billion people, sharing of telecom infra makes a lot of sense. 5G is around the corner and the investments for 5G would be very steep. Thus if the telcos can come around and figure out a way to work together, it would be good for the entire telecom sector.
