Operators Save N6.4m through Co-location

TELECOMMUNICATIONS infrastructure sharing initiatives adopted by telecom services providers as a way of reducing operational cost have started yielding results as operators save some N6.4million annually.

An operator requires some N10 million annually to run a base station but such service cost about N3.6million per annum by a licensed infrastructure building company.

A licensed infrastructure building company builds and operates base stations, and telecom towers leased out to service providers.

According to Satis Kumar, chief operating officer, Direct On Data, an ISP provider which uses collocation services said that “if telecommunications infrastructure provider companies are not at such location it will be difficult for an operator like us to expand to such area because there is a huge cost outlay to build and run a tower single handedly when you don’t know the number of customers that will subscriber to your service”
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek had reported that telecom towers Use 1.4m Litres of diesel per day to power their base transceiver stations (BTS).

It was revealed that a co-located tower which houses 3 to 5 base stations use 27KVA generator to supply power while a tower that houses a single base station uses 15KVA generator.
More so, a 27KVA generator consumes 3 litres of diesel per hour depending on the age of such generator.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that presently, towers run on generator in an average of 20 hours a day.

This means that 20,000 of co-located towers in the country that uses 27KVA generator consumes some 1.2million litres of diesel a day, while towers that house single base station which are 5,000 consume 200,000 litres of diesel a day bringing the total consumption of generators deployed in towers around the country to 1.4m litres per day.

It was learnt that this quantity of diesel consume by generators at different towers cost tower operators about N196million at diesel pump price of N140 per litre.

Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said: “In Nigeria, power is a challenge for tower operators, as cost of diesel is high; today you buy N140 per litre tomorrow you buy it for N150. These costs are not insignificant and affect the business,”.

He added that the present system of handing over towers to tower operators will create more jobs as it encourages springing up of supportive players in the industry.

“This is also fallout of our internal regulatory mechanism to ensure growth in the industry. More so, tower sale could be as a result of administrative reasons, cost reduction or shareholders decision,” he said.