Intelligent Energy and Microqual Techno Limited today announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a partnership to provide telecoms infrastructure using equipment mounted on existing power transmission towers in India. Microqual has exclusive rights from Power Grid Corporation of India Limited and other state transmission companies to use their transmission tower infrastructure in Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir – across a total of 85,000 towers. Telecoms equipment will be fitted to the transmission towers, a practice already widely adopted in other parts of the world. Based on its unique efficient power technology portfolio, Intelligent Energy will provide power to the equipment mounted on these towers.
With the telecoms industry’s growth focus in rural areas, this agreement between Microqual and Intelligent Energy to make use of the existing power grid infrastructure will significantly reduce the cost and set-up time of new telecoms sites.
There are a total of 1,138,300 power transmission towers in India today with plans to increase this number in the coming years. The transmission towers can be mounted with both telecoms and non-telecoms related equipment such as potential wireless broadband, distributed antenna systems, alternate networks for mobile network off-load, national security and municipal surveillance, and environmental monitoring.
Peter Brown, Managing Director of Stationary Power at Intelligent Energy said, “Our partnership with Microqual delivers innovative and cost-effective ways to manage and accelerate the future growth of telecoms in India.”
Mahesh Choudhary, CEO and Principal Founder of Microqual, said, “Microqual provides end-to-end telecoms infrastructure services in India and we are constantly working on providing innovative and economic solutions to the industry. While using power grid infrastructure to mount telecoms and other equipment is prevalent in the West, we are the first to offer it in India. By doing this, we will be able to deliver substantial savings from day one. With distributed power management as a core focus and an innovative business model offering OPEX based solutions, Intelligent Energy is the right partner for us to offer complete solutions to existing and new telecoms operators.”
The partnership between Microqual and Intelligent Energy provides immediate access to approximately 85,000 towers and targets a pan-Indian presence in the next 12 months. The companies plan to work with telecoms operators to map their expansion plans to the geographies where the transmission towers presently exist. Telecoms companies can now look again at their expansion plans as using power transmission towers substantially reduces set-up costs with a much reduced start-up time when compared to conventional methods of installing towers from the ground up.
