Government likely to make telecom infrastructure sharing mandatory

Mumbai: The government is likely to make sharing of telecom infrastructure like towers in metros like Delhi and Mumbai mandatory, to enable faster rollout of services in rural areas and to bring down costs, IT and communications minister Dayanidhi Maran said.

"The move is being aimed at enabling the operators to deploy network faster and to preserve the aesthetic beauty of the city. Telecom operators have been facing a lot of problems in erecting towers with the local municipal authorities not granting permission," Maran said on the sidelines of 3GSM summit in Barcelona.

"We would start with Delhi, and if the results are positive in terms of faster roll out and lower cost, the sharing of infrastructure would be made mandatory throughout the country," he said.

Meanwhile, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), has started consultation process to look into the issue of infrastructure sharing.

Telecom operators are currently sharing infrastructure under the project Mobile Operators' Shared Towers (MOST). T V Ramachandran, director-general of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) had earlier said 1,800 more cell sites were targeted for sharing by 2007.

The IT and communications minister had also earlier said that sharing of sites would enable operators to roll out their networks into the more populated semi-urban and rural areas besides lowering the cost.

While telecom operators had earlier opposed the move, saying the sharing of infrastructure between two operators should be decided on commercial basis and market forces, they too are now veering round to the view that sharing of infrastructure would provide economies of operation.