Vodafone Signs Tower Sharing Deal with NZ Communications

New Zealand's 3rd mobile operator, NZ Communications says that it has inked a deal with Vodafone to rent space on up to 116 of the rival operator's towers. The company has delayed its launch several times citing problems with securing locations for its base stations, so the move should help accelerate its network rollout.

The company has previously signed a roaming agreement with Vodafone, but that only comes into effect once the network has launched some services on its own infrastructure. The operator's most recent plan was to launch its network this month, but as at the end of August , the company had only built 50 of the required 400 base stations it needs to launch services.

Chief commercial officer Bill McCabe said the greement on co-location was a "step in the right direction" that he hoped would provide a foundation for access to many more sites. "It is sensible for mobile operators to share sites wherever possible. It saves operating expenditure for both parties and it has an environmental impact as well."

New Zealand's competition watchdog, the Commerce Commission recently ruled that it would also not step in to regulate the national roaming rates. The difference between the price in their commercial agreement and a price likely to be set under regulation was too small to justify intervention, it said. The Commerce Commission did however also decide that a network operator can start services with just 100 base stations, or ten percent population coverage - which it should now be able to achieve with the Vodafone tower sharing deal.

NZ Communications (formerly known as Econet Wireless) was granted a mobile license in 2001 when it formed an alliance with the Hautaki Charitable Trust which was allocated a 3G license at a discount price by the regulator.

Posted to the site on 5th October 2008