Although in much of the world mobile operators continue to build and operate cell towers themselves, a new trend toward outsourcing is emerging, primarily in North America and India. There operators have been selling cell sites or outsourcing their operation to specialized tower companies which, increasingly, are also building new towers from scratch. In an exception to the usual European practice, Vodafone and several other operators have also formed a joint venture with Arquiva to build some 5100 new towers in the region.
According to Manjaro, the cell tower build-out rate will start a slow decline some time after 2014: “Increasingly, operators are eager to reduce cell tower costs by means of passive and active infrastructure sharing. Many government regulators are actively encouraging this trend. In India, for example, operators that share towers can receive a reduction in the 5% of revenues they pay towards the country’s Universal Service Obligation fund.”
A similar eventual slowdown in antenna shipments (antennas are also covered extensively in the report) is expected as the migration to multi-band antennae reduces the total number needed.
