Photo by: Duane Daws
In line with an industry-wide strategy to drive cost efficiencies through the use of shared passive infrastructure, African telecoms tower company Eaton Towers has inked a deal to acquire over 3 500 towers in six countries from global telecommunications services provider Bharti Airtel.
Eaton said in a statement on Monday that the acquisition, which would expand Eaton’s coverage on the continent to seven countries with over 5 000 towers, was a major step towards establishing the scale needed to provide shared telecoms infrastructure solutions.
Its customers would now benefit from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service.
“This is a transformational deal, which gives Eaton Towers the most diversified tower portfolio across Africa. We are proud to be chosen by Airtel as their key partner in these six countries,” noted Eaton Towers CEO Alan Harper.
He believed the agreements would allow Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, enabling it to deleverage through debt reduction and significantly reduce its ongoing capital expenditure on passive infrastructure.
Also commenting on the development, Airtel selling entity Bharti Airtel International Netherlands chairperson Manoj Kohli said the agreements represented the next phase of Airtel’s growth journey in Africa.
“We are the pioneers and strong proponents of telecoms infrastructure sharing, which results in industry-wide cost efficiencies. The agreement with Eaton Towers is an extension of this philosophy and will lead to far superior use of passive infrastructure and will help to drive the proliferation of affordable mobile services across Africa,” he noted.
The agreements were subject to statutory and regulatory approvals in the respective countries.