When cash rich American Tower Corporation entered India seven years back, everyone thought it will emerge as the largest tower company in the country through a series of big acquisitions. The company, however, adopted a cautious approach growing its tower portfolio to 12,500 through a couple of acquisitions. The strategy seems to have paid off as Indian operation is now the third largest market for the tower company outside the US, accounting for 5 per cent of its global tower revenues. James Taiclet, Chairman, President and CEO, in an exclusive interview with Business Line, shared his plans around creating the villages of the future and the challenges ahead. Edited Excerpts

Everyone, from mobile operators to Internet companies, are now thinking about reaching affordable Internet services to the next billion. From a tower company’s point of view, how do you plan to over come the challenges around costs?

We are developing a concept called the ‘villages of the future’ for reaching mobile Internet to the village population. It has to crafted carefully because of the cost issues. Mobile operators have to fund all this and that mean suppliers like us need to bring down the costs as much as possible. We believe that this has to be a collaborative approach where the industry can work to bring costs low so that return on investment for operators is efficient which in turn enables rural users to get affordable services.

What are the building blocks for this village of the future plan?

One way to do is to share tower infrastructure. Its easy to build one tower and multiple operators can share it. Fortunately, in India, the model is already here. We also need to help operators with backhaul connectivity. In the US, backhaul is most expensive because you need so much bandwidth to connect the tower. In India the Government is working on the national Optical Fibre and we can work with the Government to plan for this, in terms of identifying sites to be connected. The other thing you need is electricity. Tower transmission should be given first priority to get grid connections. Another concept that we have explored in some countries along with energy companies is to set up 1 megawatt electrical power station at villages to substitute for the grid. The tower can become the anchor tenant and then the excess power can be distributed to the villages around it. The village of future can be done with operators, power generation firms and tower companies, We are trying to figure out how to create leadership for this concept.

Have you started discussions on this? What stage is it?

We have started discussions and some big power companies are interested. We have started some kiosks of our own in India. But to scale it up its going to take some leadership on the telecom operators part as they may not make money from day one. That’s where the Government should step in to build the ecosystem. Governments own delivery services should be available wherever there’s a tower. For example banks can put their ATMs in the premise where towers are located. The Common Service Centres can be located here. This site becomes self sustaining for energy, financial services, education and communication.

Companies like Facebook and Google are experimenting with solar powered drones and balloons to address affordability. Do you see these as disruptive to your business?

The tower is the most efficient means to deliver Internet services. Its hard to imagine how these solutions will be cost effective. The benefit, however, is that traditional telcos may not be creative so its great to have these companies from silicon valleys throwing rocks.

How do you see India on ATC’s global plans?

Ans- We have an objective to grow significantly here. Our view is that regulatory environment is improving in India, global economy is improving, cost of handset is coming down so we are re-engaged in evaluating further investments in India. We have access to capital. It’s a matter of finding the right asset at rice price.

You have 12,500 towers in India. Whats the target for next year?

Ans- We don’t have numerical target for any market. We are happy with our growth here and in fact India operation is punching above its weight. We are putting in 1,500 new sites in India a year which is the biggest build plan in any single country across our operations. We would like to expand and get more assets but it has to meet our investment criteria.

Are you in talks with any Indian players for an acquisition?

Ans We are constantly evaluating opportunities but we have a global acquisition map and are looking at assets in Africa and also in the US.

Are there any regulatory concerns in India

In India there is still no clarity on licensing on infrastructure companies. In all our operations in other countries, India is the only place which is talking about taxing tower companies. If the licence fee comes then all our investments models will go to the negative. If that tax is imposed we will be putting less resources in this country.

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