Indus Towers to invest Rs 100 crore to set up 500 sites

NEW DELHI: Indus Towers, the world’s largest telecom tower provider, will investRs 100 crore to set up 500 new sites that merge with surroundings, across India within a year, even as it generates growth from network rollouts post auctions.

The new sites, more than 100 of which have already been set up in 50 cities, are camouflaged — the tower is installed in a way that it looks like a palm tree or an electric pole.

"The sites take up 80-90 per cent less space," said CEO Bimal Dayal.

"Spectrum auction and competition in the industry are bringing in more work for us," he said, adding that aggressive competition with the entry of Reliance Jio Infocomm and spectrum sale in auctions have fuelled revenues for the tower industry.

The upward trend in revenues is expected to continue for the industry on the back of more tenancies and towers as operators expand 3G and 4G coverage. The new kinds of sites have been installed with an aim to increase voice and data capacity in high density areas such that congestion and call drops are reduced and data coverage improves.