Zambian telecoms infrastructure set for overhaul in towers sale agreement

IHS said the move “is designed to further promote network sharing” and boost the delivery of higher quality mobile services in the region.

Under the terms of the long term renewable contracts agreement (2-page / 277 KB PDF) announced last December, Airtel, part of the India-based Bharti Airtel group, will be able to “focus on its core business and customers... and significantly reduce its ongoing capital expenditure on passive infrastructure”, IHS said.

Bharti Airtel managing director and chief executive officer Christian de Faria said: “The initiative in Zambia will help us deliver a reliable high quality network run by passive infrastructure experts, whilst reducing our capital expenditure requirements and operating costs.”

IHS executive vice-chairman and group chief executive officer Issam Darwish said: “We have been working with Airtel for many years and are delighted to continue expanding our East Africa business. This acquisition will enable us to eventually upgrade these towers and continue to rollout innovative energy saving technology throughout the continent.”

IHS said it is now preparing to roll out “renewable energy solutions across the Airtel network” as part of an ongoing programme to replace “old and high consuming diesel generators with low capacity efficient generators”.

Since the first quarter of 2013, IHS said it has spent $500 million across Africa on power systems. The money has been allocated to deploy advanced generators, batteries and alternative power solutions to reduce diesel consumption, IHS said. “By the end of 2016, up to 80% of all IHS towers will be run on hybrid solar solutions.

IHS said: “This green source of energy is ideal for the region, where towers are required in often isolated rural areas with little or no access to the electricity grid but ready supplies of sunshine. In our part of the world, solar-powered towers are not only potentially more environmentally friendly but also more reliable and efficient.”

A joint report published in 2012 by the World Bank and African Development Bank, with support from the African Union, said that, at the start of 2012, Africa’s mobile telephony market was “bigger than either the EU or the US. Some 68,000 kilometres of submarine cable and over 615,000 kilometres of “national backbone networks” had already been laid to boost connectivity across the continent, the report said.

In August 2014, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, announced a $1m advisory services agreement with Airtel Zambia to increase access to mobile financial services in the Zambian market. The project is part of a $37.4m joint initiative of IFC and The MasterCard Foundation to expand microfinance and advance mobile financial services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

A report published earlier this year by The Boston Consulting Group said that SSA is adopting mobile financial services “at a pace seen in few other places, presenting banks and mobile-network operators with a set of strategic choices that will go a long way toward determining their success in the region”.

According to the report, the value of the region’s mobile money market could grow to $1.5 billion over the next four years as Africa’s ‘unbanked’ use their phones for a variety of financial transactions.