Helios Towers plans to take advantage of the evolution to next-generation mobile technologies, such as 5G and 6G, as it targets a bigger footprint across its markets.
This is according to Sainesh Vallabh, chief executive for Southern and Central Africa for Helios Towers, speaking to ITWeb recently on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress 2023, in Barcelona.
The independent tower company owns and operates 13 300 telecoms tower sites in eight African markets and one in the Middle East: Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Congo Brazzaville,Ghana, South Africa, Senegal, Madagascar, Malawi and Oman.
Vallabh told ITWeb the company is targeting 22 000 towers by 2026, noting technological advancements as fundamental enablers for the business to achieve its targets.
“We had 3G not too long ago; in fact, it’s only very recently that 3G has overtaken 2G as a dominant technology on the [African] continent.
“Technology is evolving fast; 4G is already being rolled out in a few countries, South Africa included. In other markets like DRC, it’s only about 20% of the coverage at the moment.
“4G is still very much the focus of mobile operators to rollout and now we have 5G that’s coming…there’s also talk about 6G and its benefits.
“As technology evolves, so does the need for network densification. What that means is that more sites and more points of presence are required by the mobile operators to have a similar level of coverage or to deal with the increased levels of network demand: data, voice usage, etc.
“That’s great for us because it basically means more sites for us to build, more co-locations for us to have.”
Vallabh pointed out Africa is in need of about 25 000 to 30 000 new points of service, and that’s just in the markets where Helios operates.
Overcoming challenges
Despite growth opportunities, Vallabh admitted that big infrastructure gaps, logistics and the power supply crisis pose a challenge.
For example, the lack of road infrastructure in the DRC makes it “impossible” to get from one side of the country to the other side. “This poses a challenge of getting equipment or fuel to sites – it’s impossible. We rely a lot on a partner network that we have on the ground to support us and we use alternative transportation such as waterways, air freight, etc.
“Power and the grid are not ubiquitous in the markets that we operate in. Where there is a grid, the reliability is very low. The dependence on alternative forms of energy like diesel and more sustainable forms of energy is a reality in these markets.
“This is not dissimilar from SA. While SA does have much better logistical road infrastructure, power is still not ubiquitous,” he said.
Helios entered the South African market in 2019through a partnership with Vulatel.
While still fairly small, in the broader scale of telcos or independent tower operators in the country, Vallabh revealed the towerco has grown its portfolio quite “substantially”.
Unlocking growth
According to Vallabh, since listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2019, Helios has grown the business and expanded its footprint from five markets and 7 000 towers, to more than 13 000 towers in nine markets.
This, he stated, is the result of concluding a number of acquisitions in new markets and the countries it already operates in.
“Our strategy at the time of our listing was to expand geographically, achieve a bigger footprint within Africa and the Middle East. Since then, we have developed a new five-year strategy that we effectively launched last year. This five-year strategy has a motto of 22 by 26, which means we want to achieve 22 000 by 2026.
“There’s a great pipeline that we have within our business, and it puts us very much on track to achieve or surpass the target that we have. We have coverage of about 150 million people across our portfolio. If we achieve that target of 22 000 towers by 2026, our population coverage will effectively increase to about 250 million people.
“With the evolution of technology we’re seeing, densification and achieving rural coverage, we’re confident about growth targets. A lot of the people that are unconnected are not in the urban centres, so rural coverage will play a big part of our rollout into the future as well.”
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