TowerXchange calls them the hands-dirty dozen. They are the pan-African managed service providers manning the front lines of the African tower industry.
In a region where engineering skills are a scarce resource, and in an era when MNOs and towercos alike are strongly inclined to outsource tower installation, upgrade and maintenance, there are a dozen or so managed services partners with broad, proven capabilities to support telecoms infrastructure rollouts and retrofits in multiple African markets.
Where once these companies specialised in expedited network rollouts for MNOs who were competing on coverage, as African markets mature and competition is increasingly on QoS and customer experience, the sale and leaseback of towers and the importance of towercos increases.