Brookfield backed Summit Digitel revealed in an exclusive interview with Capacity and sister publication TowerXchange that it is adding a new entity to its data infrastructure trust, that manages its digital infrastructure investment in India..
“With Roam Digitel, our newly established venture, our focus is on acquiring and building new towers to provide operators with tailored solutions,” Devesh Garg, chief sales and marketing officer at Summit Digitel and a director at Roam Digitel told Capacity.
The majority of Summit Digitel’s 174,000 towers were purchased from Reliance Jio owned infrastructure companies. Summit Digitel has built approximately 35,000 towers since 2021 for the operator, and has made modest porgress leasing space to additional tenants and acquiring build to suit contracts with India’s other operators.
Summit Digitel’s immediate financial future is guaranteed with a 30-year lease with Jio on its towers, much longer than the standard 10-to-15-year leases in the industry.
But its options to capitalise on the growth of the Indian digital infrastructure market are limited.
“There is an enormous runway of growth ahead of us in India. There are also organic and inorganic opportunities for growth. We believe there can be more towerco consolidation in India and many new sites need to be built,” Garg said.
He told Capacity that Summit Digitel already has a sister company owned by Brookfield (Crest) that is rolling out small cell and in building solutions (IBS) which means Summit Digitel do not need to focus on these segments.
TowerXchange research recently revealed that nearly two thirds of the world’s 47 largest towercos are already offering IBS, due to high demand and synergies with managing towers.
“Approximately 700,000 towers exist in India today, yet an additional half a million are required for comprehensive national coverage,” Garg said.
He continued to say that he anticipated Roam Digitel would capitalise on this opportunity and play a crucial role in developing India’s tower infrastructure.
Read the full interview in the latest edition of Capacity Magazine.
