Govt mulls mandatory telecom infra sharing

The government is likely to make mandatory the sharing of telecom infrastructure such as towers in Delhi and Mumbai, a move that would bring down the cost of setting up of towers and enable faster roll out of services in rural areas.

"The move is being aimed at enabling the operators to deploy network faster and also at the same time maintain the aesthetic beauty of the city. Operators have been facing lot of problems in putting up towers with the local municipal authorities not allowing them to do so," Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran said on the sidelines of 3GSM summit here.

"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.

The operators had earlier opposed the move, saying the sharing of infrastructure between two operators should be decided on commercial basis and market forces.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has also initiated the consultation process to look into the matter.

The operators are sharing the infrastructure under the project Mobile Operators' Shared Towers (MOST).

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) DG T V Ramachandran had earlier said 1,800 more cell sites were targeted for sharing by 2007.

Maran had also earlier said that the shared site would enable the operators to roll out their networks into the more populated semi urban and rural areas besides lowering the cost.