TELEKOM INFRA
Finding their Feet Telekom Infra is the largest tower-co in the Netherlands with over 3,200 locations - a substantial portfolio in a country less than 42,000 km ² in size . When it came time to plot a course forward for the newly carved out Telekom Infra , Varghese knew he needed to build a company that could leverage its new infrastructure assets from the ground up .
“ First , we focused on building the team . We had no one when I arrived , so our first priority was to bring some very experienced people on board ,” he says . “ I was very lucky to get the people who became my head of operations , my head of business development , technology , and finance - getting the right people on my team really was the first step in building this business the right way . Deutsche Funkturm ( DFMG ) the Deutsche Telekom Infra in Germany chipped in with some mentorship as well .”
THE RISE OF THE TOWER-CO
Over the past few years , there has been a schism between the networks that MNOs build , own , and maintain , and the infrastructure that supports those networks . Increasingly , independent companies ( which are often subsidiaries or business units owned at least in some part by the MNOs themselves ) are stepping in to act as dedicated telecom infrastructure operators , sometimes offering their services to multiple MNOs at once .
The trend represents an interesting shift in perspective . During the 1990s and early 2000s , cell towers were not considered to be saleable assets , as they were too closely tied to the MNOs core business competencies . Then , around 2014 , several companies ( including Cellnex and American Tower ) began the acquisition spree for the cell site assets of various telcos looking for greater liquidity in the face of the Recession . The industry today follows a very similar business model to the colocation data centre sector , with MNOs selling their infrastructure ( in much the same way they have sold off their data centre assets ) to dedicated operators , who in turn lease capacity back to them at favourable , infrastructureas-a-service rates . mobile-magazine . com 107