BPL Mobile looks to hive off tower business

BPL Mobile is exploring options to hive off its tower business into a separate company and is embarking on a capacity addition initiative. The company's moves put to rest all the sell-off rumours surrounding the Essar group-owned GSM service provider.

In an interview with Business Standard, BPL Mobile CEO S Subramaniam said: "We are exploring all options to demerge our tower business. Like all other cellular companies, we also intend to hive off our infrastructure business into a separate entity."

However, no decision on this has been taken as off now. "It is only in the initial thought-process stage and a decision will be arrived at later," he said.

At present, BPL Mobile has around 900 base transceiver stations (BTS) in the country, up from the 550 towers the company had at the beginning of this month. BPL Mobile, which had announced a Rs 200-crore investment in its single circle, has embarked on a capacity-expansion plan that includes addition of 50 towers a month.

By the end of this year, BPL Mobile intends to have 1,300 towers. Telecom service providers such as Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and Bharti Airtel are planning to hive off towers to become light on their assets and concentrate on their core business.

At present, the company's cell sites are being put up by Essar Infrastructure and this will continue till a final decision is taken on the hive-off, according to Subramaniam.

BPL Mobile operates from Mumbai circle and has over 1.6 million customers on its network.

The company, which had announced a Rs 200-crore investment in its lone Mumbai circle, is embarking on network capacity addition, increasing value-added services (VAS) offerings and investing in intelligent networks (IN).

The addition in BTS has resulted in the company increasing its capacity addition by 75 per cent. BPL Mobile is also giving an impetus to its VAS offerings by increasing its focus on pushmail and data services, even as it plans to roll out mobile TV services.

The company is also planning to launch BlackBerry services, which will make it the third BlackBerry service provider in the country, after Hutch and Airtel.