Telecom Italia and 3 Italia have signed a “co-siting” agreement for the sharing of radio mobile access sites which regards both existing sites and those which will be built in the future. The objects of the agreements are the so called “passive” infrastructures: poles, cables, electricity supply and conditioning systems and other civil infrastructures.
Each operator, that will maintain ownership of its infrastructure, will also house the radio mobile stations of its partner with the objective of optimizing national network coverage. The agreement does not include electronic devices which permit the supply of mobile telephony services to their customers or relative management services.
With this agreement, which also renews and widens the contents of a previous contract, the two companies ensure the observance of the guidelines contained in the Code for Electronic Communications aimed at promoting a more efficient use of network infrastructure in urban and rural areas.
“This is an agreement of huge importance for the telecommunications industry in Italy, because on one hand it improves the cost structures of the two companies, further reducing the environmental impact of a clean technology such as wireless and, on the other hand, it signals a turning point in the continuation in higher levels of competition”. Vincenzo Novari, CEO of 3 Italia highlighted.
“The value of this agreement – Stefano Pileri, Director of Technology and Operations at Telecom Italia commented– is two-fold. From the point of view of efficiency, it will be possible to significantly reduce the cost of site leases, one of the highest cost items in mobile networks. Secondly, the progressive reduction of the number of antennas will have a positive impact on the environment”.
The agreement will last three years, it is renewable and will address at full swing 2,000 sites, ensuring an optimization of investments, a cost saving of 30% and a time reduction of the network development for each operator.
