Belgium’s telecommunications and towerco market overview

Belgium has a developed and extensive telecommunications market. A country with a population of 11.5 million, it has 13.89 million mobile subscribers which enjoy one of the best mobile experiences in the region.

Although 5G rollout in Belgium had been stalled due to disagreements between federal and regional governments on environmental impact, things have managed to pick up pace with MNOs having launched 5G services, and there have been several projects involving use cases of 5G.

There are three MNOs – Proximus, Orange and Telenet's BASE, several MVNOs and a towerco.

Proximus has approximately a 40% market share and the biggest MNO on the market with 5.439 million subscribers. Launched in 1994, it was a monopoly at the time but after deregulation Mobistar (now Orange Belgium) enetered the market in 1998, followed by Base in 1999.

Proximus also provides fixed network services, internet and television on the Belgian and Luxembourg markets. Its Telindus subsidiary provides ICT infrastructure and multi-cloud business services. Proximus says its national fibre coverage stood at 21% at the end of 2022. It’s investing in increasing its fibre network footprint through various deployments totalling under €3 billion under its Fibre for Belgium programme through to 2027.

Orange Belgium which has been active since 1996 has a 28% market share in the country.

It manages both active and passive infrastructure in the country and continues building its own fibre network in line with its parent company’s Lead the Future strategy announced in February 2023.

Orange has bid to acquire a majority stake in cable operator VOO which is currently being investigated by the EC antitrust regulators to address competition concerns. The EC stopped its investigation in October 2022 to give time to Orange to reach a wholesale deal with its rival Telenet, enabling its competitor to access VOO’s network in Wallonia. The EU is to announce its decision by April.

Belgium’s third MNO BASE (Telenet) is a subsidiary of Liberty Global and has a 23% market share.

It has been an active player in Belgium's mobile market through an MVNO since 2006.

In April 2015, Telenet acquired BASE from Dutch KPN, strengthening its position on the market and migrating its mobile customers to Base’s network.

In end 2022, Telenet announced it had acquired all shares of Luxembourg-based cable operator Eltrona, having previously bought a part of them. This is the first time the MNO takes full ownership of a company outside Belgium, and it says it sees the move as an opportunity to evolve as a telecommunications operator in a broader market.

In 2022, Telenet sold its passive infrastructure to DigitalBridge’s Belgium Tower Partners.

In January 2023, Orange Belgium and Telenet announced they have signed two 15-year commercial wholesale agreements providing access to their current hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) and future fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks. The agreements provide access for Telenet to the south of Belgium while for Orange this will complement its ability to provide FTTH connectivity.

Romania-based multi-play service provider Digi announced in 2022 it had entered the Belgium market by setting up a joint venture with B2B telecom player Citymesh, owned by IT group Cegeka, to win mobile spectrum in Belgium’s 5G spectrum auction. This move is another expansion of Digi’s international presence as it already operates in Spain and Italy as a MVNO and price-competitive disruptor, and in Portugal where it has reached a long-term partnership with Cellnex Portugal that includes the deployment of 2,000 PoPs (Points of Presence) in the country until the end of 2023.

Digi and Citymesh have acquired rights to frequencies in the 700 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 3600 MHz bands from the Belgian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (BIPT) for a total of €114.33 million. Digi has said it plans to become Belgium’s fourth MNO while Citymesh plans to continue to focus on the B2B market.

Brussels-based MWingz was set up in April 2020 as a joint venture between Proximus and Orange Belgium who share active and passive equipment which includes BTS/Node B, antennas, transmission and towers.

According to the company it has been set up to plan, build, operate and manage all sites on behalf of the two MNOs.

By sharing parts of the mobile network access infrastructure, MNOs can increase the efficiency of network operations and ensure sustainable investments in new network technologies. According to MWingz, mobile access network sharing between Proximus and Orange Belgium will allow a faster and more comprehensive 5G roll-out in Belgium, covering also the 4G technology. The common network will improve coverage and the main benefits for end-users will be the improvement of the overall mobile experience thanks to a wider outdoor coverage, deeper indoor coverage and a faster 5-G roll-out.

There are a number of MVNOs on the market including Carrefour, Lycamobile and Youfone.

Carrefour Mobile was launched in 2002 by Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) and French hypermarkets group Carrefour, using the Base network.

Independent Dutch MVNO and Dutch fixed broadband, TV and voice operator Youfone launched mobile services in Belgium over the Proximus network in May 2021.

Lycamobile launched in Belgium in 2007 running on the Orange network. In 2017 it signed a full MVNO agreement with Telenet.

MVNOs can offer unlimited data for frequent travellers and remote workers, who do not have access to a physical internet landline. As thousands of people commute daily between Belgium and the countries it shares borders with, MVNOs can offer unlimited data by bundling their local purchasing agreements with MNOs as well as with fiber network operators, ISPs, local MVNOs and even satellite companies.

The first independent tower company in the country. In March 2022 DigitalBridge acquired 3,322 towers from Telenet’s mobile infrastructure unit for €745 million. Telenet’s tower business had a nation-wide footprint. Following the completion of the transaction DigitalBridge renamed the company Belgium Tower Partners (BTP).

The tenancy ratio across Telenet’s entire portfolio in Belgium is 1.2x, while the ground-based towers, in isolation, have a 1.6x tenancy ratio.

As part of the agreement, DigitalBridge will enter into a long-term master lease agreement (MLA) with Telenet, which includes an initial period of 15 years and two renewals of 10 years each – extending the total possible lease duration to 35 years.

In addition, the agreement includes a build-to-suit (BTS) commitment to deploy a minimum of 475 additional new sites, with Telenet acting as a subcontractor to DigitalBridge’s new tower company. This means that Telenet will build new towers and transfer them on to DigitalBridge’s towerco. In turn, Telenet will gain additional proceeds from DigitalBridge, over time.

DigitalBridge and Telenet’s owner, Liberty Global, have previously partnered together on a transaction in Europe when they formed a joint venture to set up the European edge centre provider AtlasEdge Data Centres. The JV is between Liberty Global, DigitalBridge’s private equity fund, DigitalBridge Partners II (DBP II), as well as Digital Realty which is minority equity investor.

In early 2022, the government of the Belgian region of Wallonia announced an agreement with the country’s mobile operators which will enable the rollout of 5G while respecting the local administration’s environmental policies. Under the deal, the region has undertaken to raise the towers’ electromagnetic emission limits to match those that are already in force in the Flanders region and will monitor the towers and the effects of 5G on both the environment and people.

According to data from the 5G Observatory, Belgium had assigned all spectrum in the 700MHz and 3.6GhZ pioneer bands with the 26GHz one still being untapped at the end of Q3 2022.

According to Proximus it was reportedly the first operator to officially launch 5G in the country while Orange launched its first permanent 5G lab in Antwerp to develop new industry use-cases. Orange also plans to commercially launch a standalone 5G private network for enterprise customers in 2022. Also, in March 2021 BASE chose Ericsson, Nokia and Google Cloud as partners for their 5G rollout as well as a network upgrade project.

Proximus and the Port of Antwerp have announced a 6-month trial of a private 5G network.

The port of Zeebrugge and Citymesh have launched a private 5G network in the Port of

Zeebrugge. Initially, this involved connectivity for tugboats, air pollution detectors and cameras and quay sensors.

Belgium seems on track to meet the European Commission’s Digital Decade objective to have 5G connectivity in all populated areas by 2030. A transport corridor linking Belgium with the Netherlands (Antwerp-Rotterdam-North Sea) has been identified as a project for enabling 5G connectivity along a vital cross-border route to be implemented within the EC’s goals and it’s yet to be announced who will be awarded to deploy the infrastructure.

Having welcomed two big new players in 2022 such as DigitalBridge and Digi, the development of Belgium’s telecommunications market does not look set to stop here.

In early 2022 the federal and regional governments approved a law about the spectrum auction which leaves some room for a fourth MNO in the market.

The federal government has already mentioned it wants to encourage the entry of a fourth mobile operator to increase competition with Belgium’s three existing MNOs. Should Digi and Citymesh’s joint venture that was assigned spectrum in 2022, become the fourth MNO, that would change the dynamics on the market that is already considered mature by some, and bring new opportunities for the market’s towerco as well as for end-users.