Vodafone Essar, Indian infrastructure company Bharti Infratel and mobile operator Idea Cellular have agreed to form an independent tower company, Indus Towers, to provide passive infrastructure services in India to all operators on a non-discriminatory basis. This follows the infrastructure sharing MoU signed between Bharti and Vodafone in February. The independent tower company initiative is a major step towards achieving Indian regulator TRAI's recommendations for passive infrastructure sharing and will create a lower cost and more competitive operating environment for mobile operators in India. The three companies will each merge their existing passive infrastructure assets in sixteen circles in India. Vodafone Essar and Bharti will own approximately 42 percent each and Idea will own the remaining 16 percent stake in Indus Towers. Indus Towers will have approximately 70,000 sites at inception and will undertake a rollout of telecommunication infrastructure to propel the mobile sector towards achieving India's teledensity and rural coverage goals within the next few years.
