Bharti Infratel, India’s leading provider of tower and related infrastructure is focusing on Wi-Fi and green technologies in a big way.
Akhil Gupta, chairman, Bharti Infratel said, “Mobile data is going to be the key pillar of growth for the India telecom industry. We are already witnessing clear signs of accelerated 3G and 4G rollouts by the operators with multi-fold increase in such installations as compared to last year.”
Bharti Infratel has jumped into Wi-Fi business by floating a Wi-Fi company called Smartx Services Limited on September 21, 2015. Smartx Services Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharti Infratel Limited and will focus on setting up Wi-Fi hotspots for providing services to telecom operators and others on sharing basis. The new company will also focus on transmission through optical fiber cables.
Smartx Services will leverage Bharti Infratel’s consolidated portfolio of over 87,000 telecom towers, which includes over 37,000 of its own towers and balance from its 42 percent equity interest in Indus Towers.
For green technologies, Bharti Infratel has initiated Green Towers P7 program based on seven ideas aimed at minimizing dependency on diesel and, thereby, carbon footprint reduction. The Green Towers P7 program promotes: improving energy efficiency of tower infrastructure equipment; use of renewable energy resources; and reduction of equipment load on tower infrastructure equipment.
As of Sep 30, 2015, Bharti Infratel operates around 3,000 solar-powered sites across the network on a consolidated basis which helps in reducing noise and emissions from DG sets and also in reducing dependency on diesel, thereby contributing towards better energy security. The company is working towards scaling up the solar installations across the network.
The company is also partnering with Renewable Energy Service companies for powering towers using renewable energy along with community power development, in rural areas.
Bharti Infratel has also deployed comprehensive program to ensure zero diesel consumption at tower sites and on a consolidated basis, over 26,000 towers are green. Adoption of Integrated Power Management Solutions (IPMS) and Plug and Play Cabinets (PPC) as part of standard configuration for new tower deployment to ensure effective utilization of grid power supply on the towers.
All these renewable energy initiatives, energy efficiency measures and load optimization methods will help the company to secure against rising power and fuel costs as well as reducing the environmental impact of the company’s operations.
So, on the one hand the company is focusing on new areas like Wi-Fi to expand its business and on the other it is trying to adopt green technologies to increase its profitability. Bharti Infratel needs to increase its pace in both the activities if it plans to be ahead of its competitor.
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