Indian carrier Aircel has signed a $400 million contract to share about 5,000 of its telecom towers with Datacom Solutions.
And the sites will be taken over by Datacom over the next 16 months, an Aircel executive told the Wall Street Journal without elaborating. The agreement covers around a third of Aircel's towers.
Datacom holds a license to offer telecom services in India, but has not yet started services. Datacom shareholder Venugopal Dhoot said the company aims to begin mobile services by the end of the year, and eventually roll out services India-wide.
Aircel competitor Reliance Infratel recently signed a similar tower-sharing deal with emerging mobile operators S Tel and Etisalat.
Aircel has reportedly been seeking to sell a stake in its tower business for some time.