Telecommunications companies have taken a number of cost-cutting measures to alleviate the massive effects of the ongoing global financial crisis, including cutting down their workforce. With investment deficiencies piling up, temporary solutions have been taken. And while temporary solutions are necessary for companies to weather the storm, long term solutions have begun to surface like outsourcing network operations, investing in network business information, and infrastructure sharing.

These days, telecom companies cannot afford to lose money as the global economic climate is still on unsteady footing, and ironically, one way for telecom companies to generate more revenue is to broaden their reach by building new cell sites in areas with little or no service at all. So how do companies go around the fact that they need to shell out money to broaden their reach?

A recent report by management advisory and investment firm Delta Partners emphasized the need to utilize infrastructure sharing strategies. The said report was geared toward the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and it underlined a projected $8 billion in savings over a period of 5 years for telecom companies. If the report’s estimated savings are to be believed, then infrastructure sharing could be a good solution to counter investment deficiency.

Telecom infrastructure sharing, as the name suggests, is a cost effective solution for telecoms to expand their reach to other areas. Rollout costs for new sites are far from inexpensive, and they eat up a large portion of telecom companies’ budgets. A telecom company looking to broaden its reach without spending too much on building new towers can find a cost effective solution in sharing another company’s assets.

There are several infrastructure sharing options that companies can take, limited only by specific telecom legislation in different countries. Also, the options of sharing depend on what electronic and non-electronic infrastructure companies are willing to share or lease.

Here are some of the possible infrastructure sharing options companies today can tap into:

Passive Infrastructure Sharing

Is what the name suggests; it allows for telecom companies to share passive or non-electronic infrastructure (non-electronic infrastructure accounts for the larger chunk of rollout costs). In cell sites, “passive” equipment includes the tower itself, electrical supply, air-conditioning equipment, and technical premises, among other things. Thus far, passive infrastructure sharing is the most commonly used option by telecom companies around the world.

Active Infrastructure Sharing

This option involves the shared use of electronic infrastructure in a cell site, including the base tower station, switches, antennas, transmission and signal processing transceivers, and microwave radio equipment.

Spectrum-sharing

This option is is basically a lease agreement between two companies. With spectrum-sharing, a company can lease a part of another company’s spectrum which enables both companies to provide service to the same customer. This type of infrastructure sharing is utilized in many parts of the world; it promotes better service at competitive prices and benefits customers.

There are other types of telecom infrastructure sharing types, each catering to a specific need. These include site sharing, mast sharing, antenna sharing, RNC (Radio Network Controller) sharing, backbone sharing (switch and router sharing), geographical splitting, frequency sharing, and base station sharing. With these, telecom companies have a lot of options available to them.

Today’s economic climate calls for companies to run like well-oiled cost efficient machines; companies can benefit from even the smallest savings. Measures such as telecom infrastructure sharing provides companies with a means to save on rollout costs and in the long run, the said savings can be used to counter shrinking investments. It is a solution that might prove practical, especially for companies looking to expand.

Infrastructure sharing opens a number of possibilities for telcos; savings translate to more capital to reinvest on building new sites, and it may eliminate the need for most companies to slim down the workforce while still remaining competitive, among others.The customers benefit too, as the healthy competition promotes better quality of service and lower costs.