The Danish mobile operators of Norway’s Telenor and Sweden’s TeliaSonera have signed a network sharing agreement to cut costs and help compete with market leader TDC.
A new infrastructure company will be set up under the partnership, which covers…
The Danish mobile operators of Norway’s Telenor and Sweden’s TeliaSonera have signed a network sharing agreement to cut costs and help compete with market leader TDC.
A new infrastructure company will be set up under the partnership, which covers antennas, towers and transmission equipment, but not their core networks where services are produced.
In a joint statement today, Telia CEO Søren Abildgaard and Telenor CEO Jon Erik Haug said: “Both Telia and Telenor have high ambitions in Denmark. However, to achieve these ambitions, we need to do two things successfully: We need to provide a world-class customer experience. And we need to secure the scale of our network to ensure that it is also profitable to do business in Denmark in the long term.
“By sharing networks, we are taking a giant and strategically important step on both fronts, making us even better prepared to face the competition.”
The agreement, which is being considered by regulators, will see the two companies giving access to existing towers where they would otherwise have had to build their own. Future towers will be constructed in collaboration, with a view to saving time and infrastructure costs.
However, Telia and Telenor will continue as two independent providers in Denmark, where they will keep compet ing with different products, services and prices.
Network sharing has becoming an increasingly popular tool among telcos looking to cut infrastructure costs.
Telenor already has a 4G network sharing agreement in Sweden with local mobile operator Tele2. Meanwhile, Telia has a 3G network sharing partnership with Tele2 in the same country.
Similar infrastructure sharing plans were also announced yesterday between Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom and France Telecom’s Telkom Kenya.