tele.net hosts its 9th annual conference on ?Telecom Infrastructure in India: Great Opportunities, Operating Challenges, Best Practices & Promising Technologies?, at The Leela Ambience, Gurgaon. The conference will resume on April 22, 2015.
The Indian tower industry has witnessed significant growth in the last one decade and currently comprises about 450,000 tower sites. During this time, several telecom operators spun-off their tower assets into a separate entity while independent tower companies expanded their operations, which resulted in a highly competitive environment in the tower industry.
The next phase of growth in the tower industry will be driven by the increase in the subscriber base, 3G/4G network rollouts, shorter network rollout time and low working capital requirements. Further, the industry is expected to make enhanced use of high-capacity, multi-tenant towers and phase out older, uneconomical towers.
Despite the ongoing initiatives and significant growth potential, the telecom infrastructure industry continues to face several regulatory and operational challenges. According to infrastructure providers, the key challenge faced by the industry is the disconnection between the policy formulated at the centre and its implementation at the state level. Apart from this, state authorities continue to shut down tower sites due to concerns regarding EMF radiations. Thus there is an impending need for creating public awareness by the government, in this regard. Another key issue for the tower companies is the policy uncertainty regarding sharing of active infrastructure. To resolve this issue, more policy clarity is required on sharing of antennas and fibre.
Going forward, the outlook for the telecom infrastructure industry is positive. In the next two years, 3G and 4G network rollouts by operators will drive the demand for tower infrastructure and ensure growth in tenancies. The focus will be on smaller, lighter towers, and network realignment between technologies and frequency bands. Also although availability of grid power has improved a lot, tower companies are looking to partner ESCos and are willing to ensure a load factor of 2-5 kW as an anchor customer. However, the tower companies reckon that sustenance to such a business model will need to be sought from the local community.
tele.net is hosting the conference on ?Telecom Infrastructure in India? with a mission to examine the key growth trends; discuss the opportunities and challenges; study the impact of recent policy and regulatory developments; and showcase the latest innovations and the most promising technologies. The conference provides a platform to industry stakeholders to share their experiences and exchange ideas.
Key sessions on the first day included Key trends and market outlook; Infrastructure provider?s perspective; Update on NOFN; Enabling the dynamic needs of Indian telecom infrastructure market; Update on spectrum trading and sharing; Infrastructure needs of 3G and 4G networks; Focus on renewable energy and Energy management: strategies and solutions.
Some of the key speakers were Umang Das, Chief Mentor, Viom networks and Director general, TAIPA; Bimal dayal, Chief Operating Officer, Indus Towers; Devender Singh Rawat, Chief Executive Officer, Bharti Infratel; P.K. Agarwal, Director, Planning and Operations, Bharat Broadband Networks Limited; Pankaj Agarwal, Director, Capitel Partners; Jaspreet Singh, Director, Ernst and Young, India; Sairam Prasad, Chief Executive Officer, Lineage Power Systems; Ambikesh Pratap Singh, Head of Energy, Viom Networks; Murali Arikara, Executive Director, essential Energy; Sachin Gupta, General Manager, Energy Efficiency, Bharti Infratel; Tushar Kapadia, Vice President ? Strategic Initiatives, GTL Infrastructure; Ajit Shankar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ardom Telecom and Pankaj Sachdeva, Director, Telecommunications, Ramboll India.
