Union Cabinet Approves Hiving Off BSNL Mobile Assets Into a Separate Company, Fully Owned by BSNL

Follow Us

State run telecom operator BSNL's mobile tower assets will soon be hived off into a separate company as approved by Union Cabinet earlier today. The Union Cabinet today approved hiving off the mobile tower resources of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) into a separate company, fully owned by BSNL.

tower-BSNL-5G




An official press statement from BSNL said that the company can monetize its telecom tower infrastructure with the formation of a separate subsidiary.

Currently, BSNL owns 66,000 telecom towers in the country, out of the total 4.4 lakh towers. “An independent, dedicated tower company of BSNL with a focussed approach will lead to rising in external tenancies and higher revenue for the company,” said the official release from BSNL.

A look at the background:

The telecom tower industry has emerged as an independent business to harness the potential for sharing of infrastructure. The business model arose from the need to achieve economies of scale and to reduce capital investment costs for providing mobile services.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) policy allows sharing of passive infrastructure i.e. the tower structure, Diesel Generator sets, battery units, power interface unit, air-conditioning etc., which has facilitated the growth of the telecom infrastructure industry.

A tower infrastructure company essentially owns the passive infrastructure asset and leases it to telecom service providers enabling them to minimize duplication of investments and economize on costs of Operation and Maintenance (O&M), thereby improving profitability.

Besides the captive model in BSNL and MTNL where the service provider owns their passive infrastructure also, there are three different business models within the telecom tower industry:- companies created by hiving off the tower assets portfolios of service providers into subsidiaries, companies established as independent joint venture entities by service providers jointly and companies promoted by specific service providers but established as independent entities with the promoter being the anchor tenant for the tower company.

Reported By

Managing Editor

Chakri is a go-to guy for your next smartphone recommendation. Back in his engineering days, he used to play with smartphones by installing custom ROMs and that passion got him into the tech industry. He still goes nuts about a smartphone knocking his door for review. Currently managing everything at Telecom Talk, Chakri is trying to master PUBG Mobile in his free time.

Recent Comments

Praveen :

Can someone englighten as to why the Govt is not shutting down MTNL in spite of multi thousands of crores…

MTNL Defaults on Over Rs 8,300 Crore Loan Repayments to…

Amit :

Employees don't work, so what else can you expect. Nobody wants to be a MTNL subscriber. This company should shut…

MTNL Defaults on Over Rs 8,300 Crore Loan Repayments to…

Faraz :

Still Vi is not able to with such variations of plans is quite disappointing.. We can observe that plans are…

Vodafone Idea Offers Over 100 Prepaid Recharge Options As of…

Faraz :

Yes because since one week I was tried too much, even changed network mode of LTE only, yet it stayed…

Telecom Drive Tests Reveal Airtel, Jio Lead in Network Quality…

Faraz :

I thought Airtel is using B3 1800 MHz for 2G in U.P East. Change the network to 2G only and…

Telecom Drive Tests Reveal Airtel, Jio Lead in Network Quality…

Load More
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
1 Comment
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments