The amendment will be tabled today, and a parliamentary debate is expected in about two months, minister’s said.
Sri Lanka is home to approximately 7,000 mobile towers at the moment, but they can only be built by the nations telcos, in partnership with government parties.
Malaysian headquartered Edotco, an infrastructure subsidiary of Axiata Group, has currently been focusing on the less regulated muti-purpose 5g ready pole business in Sri Lanka, an industry expert with knowledge of the matter told Capacity.
It has racked up over 700 of these sites, and secured a 1.3x tenancy ratio, a KPI used by towercos to judge the level of sharing that occurs on their towers.
The new legislation opens up the market to Edotco and others who see Sri Lanka as an attractive market to do business in.
On average 300 sites are built in Sri Lanka each year, which would offer organic growth opportunities for a towerco looking to grow or expand into the market.
Securing co-locations on these new sites wouldn’t be impossible, a degree of infrastructure sharing happens in Sri Lanka already, with a 1.7x tenancy ratio across its nationwide count of 7,000 towers.
“Right now when we build towers, we share it. Say if Dialog builds a tower, they share it with (Sri Lanka) Telecom and with other telco companies,” state technology minister Kanaka Herath said.
Budget cuts following Sri Lanka’s financial crisis has slowed the pace of new builds though, a problem the amendemnet is trying to solve by allowing third-party’s to build towers.
“The new license open up additional scope to build macro towers (especially rural telephony) and to do sale and leaseback deals,” the expert told Capacity.
