Tata Tele-BSNL in 15-year infra sharing deal

Tata Teleservices today joined state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) for sharing infrastructure across the nation, in a first such partnership that would help the private firm expand its GSM network expeditiously.

After signing the 15-year deal, Tata Tele said: "This is a moment of pride for us, as we have become the first private telecom operator to enter into such a strategically important agreement with BSNL, one that will allow us to expand our telecom footprint across the country much more quickly."

TTSL, however, declined to give financial details of the deal.

"The agreement, which is valid for 15 years, will be applicable to both TTSL and TTSL (Maharashtra) in all of India's 22 telecom circles," TTSL's Legal and Regulatory Affairs President Madhav Joshi said.

The deal comes at a very strategic time for Tatas as the company is in the process to launch its GSM mobile services under the Tata DoCoMo brand name and BSNL has infrastructure assets across the country -- the largest for any telecom firm.

In the last three months, the company has rolled out GSM services in nine circle — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana. 

The infrastructure sharing would give advantage to the company in terms of reduced cost and the same would be reflected in the tariff structure of both the firms.

"This agreement has the potential to not just speed up our network expansion and roll out process, but would also have a substantial impact in terms of reduced costs," TTSL Chief Technology Officer A G Rao said.

Under the terms of the agreement, TTSL and TTML will have access to thousands of BSNL towers all across the country.

Sources said the financial details of the deal would actually depend upon the usage of towers by each company in respective circles and thus it would be decided later.