New Delhi, Oct 5:

This could be one of the biggest mergers in the telecom sector. After entering into an agreement to share their infrastructure, GSM mobile companies including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular are now exploring the possibility of merging their passive infrastructure to form a mega tower company.

Apart from leveraging on operational efficiency, the merger is aimed at getting a higher valuation for their country-wide mobile infrastructure. The three companies together own more than 70,000 towers across the country.

“The talks have been going on for some time, though no finality has been given to it. The companies are yet to agree on the modalities of being joint venture partners in terms of the equity share that they would hold and other operational issues,” said a source close to the negotiations.

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