Infrastructural sharing among telecom operators has been identified as a major way to grow African telecommunication market as all the stakeholders stand to benefit from such development.

Speaking at the CEO Roundtable discussion weekend at the AfricaCom conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, Chief Executive of Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Steve Evans, said doing so will be beneficial to all the stakeholders in the telecom market. Mr. Steve said "It is important that all the operators are given to infrastructural sharing. It is incredibly important that rather than duplicate sites across the nation, it will much more sensible if all parties were able to collocate so that we don't have to duplicate infrastructures."

Steve who was joined by the CEOs of Vodacom, Mozambique, Mr. Jose Dos Santos, Safaricom, Kenya, Mr. Michael Joseph at the two day event which ended yesterday discussed on the sub theme "Investing Initiatives to Reach new Customers in Afrca" made a case for operators and participants at the conference which has as theme "Sustaining growth in Africa's Communication markets" to adopt infrastructure sharing as that was the only way operators can build a huge network. Giving example with the benefits that Etisalat Nigeria stands to derive form collocation, Steve said Etisalat has aerial opportunity to build a huge network if only other operators can allow it tap into their structures. He said "We have money to a big network but why not use other people's towers so that we can save money and reduce our costs and also reduce the cost of other operators. This will also translate to reduced costs to customers."

"We will really want to be a leader in this area and share other peoples towers and transmissions so that we don't have to build our own fiber backbone across the country. Though according to him, most operators are not tended towards this direction due to competitive advantage they have over others especially the new entrants, but the present economic realities occasioned by the global economic meltdown has compelled most of them to give the option a second thought.

Speaking on the benefits of the conference to Nigeria operators in particular and Africa in general, Mr. Steve whose company is attending the annual event for the first time said telecom operators stand to benefit immensely from the conference. According to him, "It is important for Nigerian for Nigerian companies selling services to come here (at the conference) because there is a huge opportunity to meet other people and find business opportunities. You may also find creative or innovative ideas here which you may take back to Nigeria because nobody has monopoly of good ideas."

Collaborating the position of Mr. Steve,Mr.GbengaRotimi, emphasised the need for collocation saying it is economically efficient, reduces proliferation and allows operators to focus on their core competencies. He said despite the challenges associated with collocation the market has been gradually moving towards that direction. "the market is gradually moving towards collocation; the government, ministry of information and communication supports collocation; Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) supports collation."

To underscore the importance of collocation, Rotimi who is the Chief Commercial Operator of Helios Towers said that his company which won an award at the conference, has been duly licensed to provide collocation and infrastructural sharing for the telecomm operators All through the two days event, lots of speakers lauded the benefits of collocation and infrastructure sharing not just for Africa but also the whole of the global telecom market. In a presentation by Turkish company, the benefits were enumerated given fillip to the need for other operators especially those in the African continent to draw benefits from the new trend.

As the event draws to a close, participants have said that the conference is the best telecoms event ever in the continent. Over 4,000 participants from over 120 countries attended the congress which provided a great showcase of the Africa's dynamic telecommunications market.

"AfricaCom is the best event we've been to, said Angela Gahagan of MTN; the attendance has been great and MTN is proud to be associated with this kind of event which allows people to show what Africa has to offer".

The 200-stand exhibition provided opportunities for participants to learn about the latest technologies and new products, while the high-level conference brought together CEOs and senior executive of the leading companies to share their expertise and strategies for their markets: Operators such Etisalat, Orange, Vodacom, Safaricom, Comium and solutions provider from international infrastructure vendors to local companies offering specialised solutions for the African markets graced the high profile event.