Indus Towers to convert Delhi’s 3,000 street light poles into telecom towers

NEW DELHI: Indus Towers and its partner telecom operators plan to invest about Rs 220 crore over three years to equip 3,000 street light poles in the entire New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) area with 2G/3G/4G technologies, with a target of 1,000 poles each year.

The world’s largest telecom tower company, which has more than 115,000 towers across India, has won a tender to set up a digital network by way of street lamps across the NDMC area.

Indus Towers is a three-way joint venture between Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular in which India’s top two carriers hold 42% share each while Idea holds 16%. In order to execute this large project of 3,000 2G/3G/4G enabled poles, Indus will set up a dedicated project management team in consultation with NDMC and the telecom operators to install robust outdoor equipment in weather-proof and tamperproof casing, ensuring low maintenance and security.

“We will continue to work with NDMC and all other authorities to create a robust and efficient Next-Gen digital services network with maximum ease and optimum costs. Connecting Lutyens’ Delhi with NextGen technologies will be a step further in our vision of transforming lives by enabling communication,” Indus Towers’ CEO BS Shantharaju said in a statement.

These poles will additionally be upgraded with LED lights (consuming lesser energy), CCTV cameras (for video surveillance), WiFi access points (to cover all road lengths) and optical fibre networks (to backhaul the telecom traffic) as well, the company said in the statement. The deployment of the digital network is in line with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s plans for a Wi-Fi enabled Delhi.

The project will help create common infrastructure which can be shared by multiple telecom operators to provide their mobile and broadband services to citizens of Delhi. “The first-of-its-kind partnership will also provide capex efficiency significantly by enabling a platform which will support to host multiple technologies like 2G, 3G, 4G and optical fibre,” the company said.