Tilak Raj Dua, director general of TAIPA (Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association), says the year 2016 has been full of excitement in terms of business, regulatory and policy with extensive support from the government.
During the year, India Government has taken path breaking initiatives such as adequate spectrum availability through spectrum auctions, policy around the installation of towers on Government land and buildings which will help improve call drops and coverage related issues, clarity on Right of Way, amendments in building by-laws which allows installation of towers on residential buildings and directions by CPCB exempting stand-alone DG set up for 1 MVA etc.
All these developments will lead the industry towards creating robust telecom infrastructure and will further enable ease-of-doing-business. The year 2016 witnessed 21 mergers and acquisitions in Asia Pacific out of which seven M&As were recorded from India.
On the other side of the business, the year of 2016 was power packed with developments such as 4G rollouts across the nation accelerating the deployment of advanced infrastructure and technology.
Mobile network infrastructure sharing emerged as one of the key trends. Indian telecom industry took several eco-friendly initiatives such as installation of 89,000 diesel-free sites beside bringing in the innovation in the tower deployment such as use of fibre reinforcement polymer.
In the year 2017, the Indian telecom tower industry will witness more mergers and acquisitions with clarity on the enabling policies contributing to ease-of-doing business. With the increase in data explosion the tower industry will witness huge growth in deployment of towers and tenancies.
The accelerated network investments will drive revenue and tenancy growth for the tower companies.
Further, Government’s vision of Digital India and Smart cities will fuel the requirement and deployment of telecom infrastructure as it is backbone for facilitating connectivity.
Apart from this, with a digital push by the government towards cashless payments, more and more Indians will adopt smartphone based payment methods. Further, India will also see rapid adoption of the internet, making this market ripe for digital entrepreneurs for years to come. It will lead to a rise in consumption of on demand videos on the second screen. Payments Bank launches in 2017 are also expected to exacerbate mobile linkages.
By Tilak Raj Dua, director general of TAIPA (Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association)
