CAIRO: Mobiserve Holding, a solutions provider for telecommunication infrastructure engineering services in the Middle East and Africa, signed a new cellular network tower sharing agreement with Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), according to a statement. The agreement, signed this week at the premises of the NTRA at the Smart Village, enables telecom operators in Egypt to share network infrastructure. Effective this month, the license confers on Mobiserve the ability to build their own cellular network sites and rent them to telecom operators in Egypt. The concept of network sharing in which multiple operators can share a single network tower or cellular site reduces the cost of ownership and maintenance while increasing network coverage. “Network sharing is one of the fastest growing trends in the telecommunications industry, becoming a widely adopted business model in the US, Europe and Asia,” the statement said. “In the Middle East, regional operators are increasingly implementing this concept with UAE based operators du and Etisalat signing a network sharing agreement last year. This however, is one of the first licenses of its kind granted in Egypt.” Sameh Atalla, CEO of Mobiserve Holding, said, “This is a significant step for Mobiserve as it is in-line with one of the fastest growing trends in the industry. It not only enables Egyptian operators to bring costs down as they continue to roll out next generation networks but to push forward with innovative services for their customers.” “It also gives operators the opportunity to focus on their core business while relying on an experienced company for managing network sites,” Atalla said. By reducing duplication of the most expensive parts of an operator's network, cell sites, towers, base station equipment and transmission network, operators deliver better services more cost effectively. Savings can be significant for an operator, 20 percent to 50 percent of an operator's capital or operating costs depending on the level of network sharing, without compromising network quality. Cairo-based Mobiserve has expertise in the build out and maintenance of a number of network cellular sites in Egypt and neighboring countries, to date installing and maintaining more than 12,000 sites Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
