TowerXchange starts a long journey to profile proven innovative equipment and managed service providers to Africa’s telecoms infrastructure community, interviewing senior executives at companies with a demonstrable track record of saving energy and maintenance opex, and optimising rollout and retrofit capex.
The selection of the right equipment and managed services partners, and the identification of innovations that yield the best opex saving for the lowest capex, are both critical decisions for tower operators, whether MNOs or independent towercos. So this edition seems like a good time to consider the impact of the entry of independent tower companies on that supply chain, and to ask “how do towercos buy?”
Towercos account for an increasing proportion of Africa’s greenfield and retrofit expenditure
Given the significant proportion of new build-to-suit contracts being secured by towercos, together with the pent-up maintenance and capacity upgrade investments a tower transaction can release, it’s clear that tower companies are critical prospects for Africa’s passive equipment, EPC and managed service providers.
