Tata Teleservices is in talks to sell of up to 49 percent of its telecom tower business, according to a Reuters report. The company, which has around 10,000 towers, is talking to around 20 players to offload between 26-49 percent, according to managing director, Anil Sardana. 

With more focus towards sharing of telecom towers to reduce costs of operation, most telecom companies in India are selling off stakes in their tower business. Last year, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular had formed a joint venture that would enable them to share their telecom towers. Carriers understand the fact that the next major wave of subscribers will come from rural India, where deploying a network is expensive and the ARPUs will be lower than the current average of around Rs 350 per month, which makes sharing of telecom towers an ideal solution. 

“Operators will automatically receive subsidies for the deployment and management of towers, funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), as long as operators share the towers with three other operators or service providers,” said TRAI ch