Cellular subscribers can now look forward to better connectivity and reduction in problems such as network congestion and call failure. In line with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) recommendation on sharing of infrastructure, the major CDMA and GSM operators in the country have launched Project MOST (Mobile Operators Shared Towers).
Under this, operators will put up their equipment on a single tower, which will enable two or more competing mobile operators to emit radio signals from the same tower, thus reducing costs and improving coverage.
So far, operators have been setting up their own towers for providing service. Project MOST is expected to help save significant resources to finance further rollouts, enhance environmental aesthetics and lower the costs per operator. Besides, it would cut down the time spent on seeking separate permissions and security clearances, which each operator requires. Moreover, tower sharing can help reduce the problem of call drops, which are a result of dark spots caused by the absence of towers.
According to Sanjeev Aga, chairman of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and director on the board of Idea Cellular, “Infrastructure sharing should result in cost savings of up to 10 per cent for every mobile company. This saving is likely to go a long way in promoting the telecom sector.
To start with, four sites have been selected: the Delhi High Court, Rajokri, Dhansa and Noida. Operators such as Airtel, Hutch, Idea, MTNL, Reliance and Tata will be sharing the towers at these places. By next year, the number of shared sites is expected to reach 1,800.
The rural areas are also to be brought into this ambit. About 8,000 to 10,000 towers are likely to be set up shortly in rural areas, which would cover almost 85 per cent of the country. Moreover, a detailed exercise, funded through the Universal Service Obligation Fund, is being undertaken to identify villages in rural and remote areas not covered by wireless signals.
Communications and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran has also asked TRAI to look into the possibility of a new policy that would make it mandatory for operators to share towers.
According to COAI’s director-general T.V. Ramachandran, India would need 140,000 towers by 2007 and 350,000 towers by 2010, up from 70,000 at present. An investment of Rs 250 billion will be needed for cell site deployment. Replicating infrastructure, rather than colocation of antennae, is seen as a drain on telecom operators’ revenue.
Maran has pointed out that infrastructure sharing would not only enable operators to set up limited base stations in sensitive areas on a shared basis but would also improve coverage, address the problem of call drops and benefit customers.
Given that India is the fastest growing mobile market in the world with over 100 million mobile users and nearly 5 million subscriber additions a month, the bottomline for operators needs to be cost efficiency, leading to affordable and better quality service. Infrastructure sharing could well be the solution they need.
