India cuurently has around 200,000 telecom BTS towers and is expected to grow to around 400,000 in the next 3 years.The Operators who are at the top end of the chain has seen tremendous value in these towers and have started unleashing the same.The valuation of each tower is approx 10 million INR and recently Bharti Infratel,Vodafone and Idea cellular have joined hands to promote INDUS the tower company.I am sure this entity will soon be listed at a premium and value realised.
But what makes the valuation of these towers so high considering the fact that there is a limitation on the number of suscribers that each of these tower can handle.
Coming to what these towers are : Each tower has Infrsatructural devices which cn be classified as Active & Passive.The active devises are the Telecom Switching equipments,Base Station devices,Microwave links etc.The passive infrastructure comprises of Telecom Rectifiers,24/48 nos batteries,Generator,AMF panel,ACs and PIUs in some towers.
What control does the tower companies have on these fixed assets.It is more on paper rather than physical in view of the challenges that is posed.
