India's Bharti, Vodafone Essar, Idea to Form Mobile Infrastructure JV
December 14, 2007
Three major Indian mobile communications operators - Bharti, Vodafone Essar, and Idea Cellular - announced on December 8 that they have reached an agreement to set up a joint venture to build mobile towers and share mobile infrastructure. This new independent company is projected to provide passive infrastructure services to all telecom operators and wireless service providers of India.
Bharti, Vodafone Essar, and Idea will merge their existing passive infrastructure assets in 16 telecom circles of India into the new company named Indus Towers. Initially Indus Tower will have a total of 70,000 base stations, and the company expects to add 50,000 new base stations in the next few years. Bharti and Vodafone Essar will each have 42% stake in the new company, and the remaining 16% stake will be owned by Idea.