Blogs

Vertical Bridge is going to acquire 200 towers of CiG Wireless

CiG Wireless, an independent owner of wireless infrastructure company proclaimed that it has signed an agreement with an affiliate firm of Vertical Bridge Holdings. As per this agreement CiG Wireless’ tower portfolio, which comprises of more than 200 tower sites, will be acquired by Vertical Bridge as part of the merger. The all-cash deal is predicted to value at $143 million.

1 Million cell towers will be acquired by Chinese joint venture: China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom

It is announced that Regulators in China will transfer nearly 1 million cell towers to a state-backed three way joint venture involving largest Chinese wireless players China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. China Mobile has 40 percent, China Unicom 30.1 percent and China Telecom 29.9 percent stake in Telecom infrastructure. A total of 999,000 cell towers are owned by the joint venture, out of which China Mobile is leading the way with 540,000. This deal will lead to gain of $24 billion to telecom operators in one shot.

American Tower Targets South African assets of MTN

American Tower is willing to purchase a part of MTN Group’s network of 9,000 towers in South Africa. The assets are valued between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. Several other companies are also interested in taking over MTN’s tower portfolio. Closely related sources also reported that “if this deal is indeed made, it will not happen before the end of the year”.

American Tower takes over a part of Verizon’s tower portfolio for $5B

In order to make up for all the money spent in the recent FCC spectrum auction, Verizon Communications is going to enter into an agreement with American Tower which enables
American Tower to lease and operate the Verizon towers for about 28 years. Verizon Wireless agreed to sell 165 towers to and lease the rights of 11,324 of its communications towers to American Tower for $5.056 billion in cash.

Indus Towers won contract from NDMN to build a digital network

Indus Tower acquired a contract over the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) to set up digital networks street lamps across the NDMC area. According to the contract, Indus Tower shall deploy 3000 street lamps with 2G, 3G, 4G spectrum in order to enhance Wi-Fi coverage. These light poles will be equipped in a span of 3 years, with 1000 poles each year. This venture would fulfill chief minister’s plans of Wi-Fi enabled Delhi. These poles will also have CCTV cameras for video surveillance, LED lights, Wi-Fi access points to enclose all roads and optical fiber networks to backhaul the telecom traffic. The company would set up dedicated project management team that will work in consultation with NDMC and tower operators in order to install robust outdoor equipment in weather-proof and tamper-proof casing, ensuring low cost of maintenance and security.

Tata Group and Telenor are likely to have merged wireless telephony operations in India

Two big brands Tata Group and Telenor Group are undergoing advanced discussions to unite their wireless telephony operations in India, with Telenor handling day-to-day business of this merged venture. Tata group will hold fewer shares than Telenor in this merged entity.

UST Global is planning plans to invest $100 million in the Indian telecom Industry

US-based IT Company UST Global is planning to invest Rs 610 Cr. in Indian telecom sector and will create employment opportunities in India, since it will hire over 25,000 people, mostly telecom professionals, over the next two to three years of time span.

Sajan Pillai, chief executive at UST Global, foresees India’s telecom sector will experience the largest growth over the next five years, from a services perspective, as usage of smartphones is drastically increasing, leading to massive rise in data usage. This, in turn, will also require customer management services, operating and business systems (OSS, BSS) on data networks.