Why is sharing mobile infrastructure so essential today?
Published at
You think you live in a connected world? According to a UN study published last year 37% of the world’s population has no access to the Internet due to a lack of stable and affordable infrastructure. There is still a huge way to go to empower operators in serving connectivity to every inhabitant of this world. The sharing of infrastructures hosting telecommunications antennas between several operators and other players in the telecoms sector could be the solution.
What are Towercos?
If water and gas flows through your pipes, it is with the help of essential infrastructures. But in the case of mobile telephony, this structure must be wireless to facilitate your daily life. And this magic trick is possible thanks to the many towers hiding in our landscape.
The development of telecommunications towers used to be managed entirely by the operators, but the business model has evolved over the years. To facilitate mobile deployments and focus on the management of their active networks, operators are increasingly calling on Tower Companies, also called Towercos.
Towercos are therefore mobile infrastructure managers. Born in the United States, and arrived a few years ago in Europe, they provide their so-called “passive” infrastructures (everything that is not electric, as opposed to active infrastructures which emit a mobile signal, for example 4G or 5G antennas) to accelerate mobile deployments. They therefore ensure the maintenance, access and security of these sites and pylons intended mainly for telecom operators.
Operators and other wireless network players (radio, television…) rent Towercos infrastructure consisting of a pylon, fences and power supply in order to broadcast their frequencies. They make their solutions accessible to their customers while reducing the cost of installing and maintaining antennas. Towercos are thus becoming increasingly important partners for operators.
Illustration of a ground-based tower and a rooftop tower
Why did the Towercos concept emerge?
Every day, your phone brings you a new source of continuous information. All this is possible thanks to key players in the digital world and their technologies that have been constantly evolving for decades. For these players, Towercos are the next step in this search for performance and accessibility, as they offer an economical and responsible solution to operators to meet the connectivity needs of their customers. Let’s go back to the origin and conditions of this transformation on a commercial and technical level and impacted by the arrival of 5G.
Customer demands and expectations
Smartphones, autonomous vehicles, connected homes… All these everyday innovations have increased the demand for bandwidth and the need to optimise network coverage. According to GWI, the average time a person spends on the internet per day has gone from 6 hours and 9 minutes in 2013 to 6 hours and 58 minutes in 2021. This shift in customer demand and technical innovations, such as the arrival of 5G, require increasing investments from operators to maintain the network and keep their performance promises. Towercos are a response to these changes: they provide the necessary investment for the construction of passive mobile infrastructures for today and tomorrow.
Telecoms have changed the way they value themselves to adapt their business to a changing digital environment. They are no longer assessed solely on the quantity and quality of their physical equipment, but also on their ability to offer their solutions for multiple customers. Thanks to Towercos, operators can reduce their investment costs in mobile infrastructure while focusing on the end service provided to their customers.
The arrival of 5G, a new challenge for operators
A McKinsey study revealed that a move to 5G could double the total cost of ownership (an index also known as TCO, which estimates the direct and indirect costs of a product or service) of a telecommunications company’s infrastructure by 2020 to 2025. To remain competitive in the face of market demand and technological innovations, telecommunications service providers must make large-scale investments that sometimes amount to billions of euros.
However, with the deployment of 5G mobile network technology on the territory, mobile telephone operators (Bouygues, Free, SFR, Orange, etc.) will need to generate OPEX savings by sharing electricity, rent land and site maintenance, mitigating a continued decline in revenue per user for operators and thus improving their profitability.
In this context, the role of Towercos is to respond quickly to these changes. Morgan Stanley also thinks that one of the best ways to take advantage of the global growth of data and 5G developments could be to rely on the shared infrastructure of Towercos.
With its current network of 27,000 towers, TOTEM provides shared solutions for French and European operators, as well as distributed antenna solutions (DAS) for dense and closed areas such as stadiums or public transport. The company brings together the exceptional infrastructure of the Orange group and decades of experience in telecommunications to understand its customers and the communities with which they create lasting relationships. The heart of our strategy: connectivity accessible to all.
