Safaricom, Orange ink infrastructure agreement
France Telecom-Orange and Safaricom enter infrastructure sharing agreement
Safaricom’s CEO Bob Collymore says the new agreement will reduce operational costs and improve customer service.
“The two companies have over 4,000 towers between themselves and we expect that in addition to the initial equity and debt financing, each partner will contribute some of its existing infrastructure into a common pool,” says Mickael Ghossein, Orange CEO.
“We also expect to consolidate future needs through central planning and deployment so as to take advantage of the economies of scale presented by this deal,” says Ghossein.
Telecom analysts are hoping that other telecom companies and operators will follow suit, in order to help develop the IT infrastructure in Kenya.
“With companies under a lot of pressure to make services cheaper as price wars hit the country over the past few months, it is nice to see companies coming together to make things happen,” says Khalil Makhlila, a Mombasa based telecom analyst.
By: Janan Yussif – ICT Senior Journalist
