MTS, a major Russian mobile operator, and Rostelecom, the national telecom operator, have agreed to share part of their network infrastructure, including towers (antenna masts) and optical fiber cables, reported Russian business daily Vedomosti.
Rostelecom has the largest network infrastructure in Russia, extending about 500,000 km, or 310,685 miles, covering even remote and underdeveloped territories in Siberia, the North, and the Far East. In exchange for access to them, MTS will make its sites and towers for base stations available to Rostelecom, which is developing mobile services.
The agreement may cut the capital expenditures of both parties by 10% every year, according to a source in the industry who spoke to Vedomosti.
Russian mobile and telecom operators are tending to cooperate more and more to share their infrastructure, particularly to develop LTE networks at lower cost.
