Sunil Taldar, Airtel Africa’s Chief Executive Officer, has urged African telecoms operators to open their infrastructure through coordinated equipment and spectrum sharing, a move he described as cost-effective and capable of expanding coverage and reaching more customers.
The CEO made the remarks in an interview with Arise News on Friday during a Business Report show.
Taldar said that telecom operators spend millions of dollars on deploying telecom infrastructure while coverage gaps are still present due to funding limitations. He mentioned that operators can leverage colocation and shared infrastructure to penetrate underserved communities and gain new users.
“If the need is to deploy 1,000 kilometres of fibre and Airtel deploy 1,000 kilometres of fibre while our competitor also deploys 1,000 kilometres of fibre in the same area, what are we doing? We’re duplicating fibre,” he said.
He explained:
“If we share fibre, the same 1,000 kilometres of fibre on which our network can run and the competitor’s network can run the other 1,000 kilometres that we’ve saved covers another 1,000 in another area. So what we’re doing is we are removing duplication of investment.”
In March 2025, Airtel and MTN announced plans to share heavy network infrastructure like towers, base stations, fibre-optic networks, and Radio Access Network (RAN) in Nigeria and Uganda. The partnership was designed to lower operational expenses and avoid the duplication of expensive telecom infrastructure.
What we’re doing is removing duplication of investment, covering more areas, solving real problems, reaching out to underserved communities and rural areas, and bringing more people into digital inclusion.
The Airtel Chief noted that infrastructure sharing between operators does not change the fact that they are competitors in the same industry. He added that despite sharing physical infrastructure assets, both operators will remain completely independent competitors in the consumer market.
Also read: Airtel Africa bets major share of $1.1bn CAPEX on spectrum acquisition and fibre rollout in 2026.
Airtel Africa’s partnership with Starlink
The CEO referred to the Airtel and Starlink direct-to-cell partnership as a collaborative effort to deepen penetration beyond terrestrial towers’ capacity.
Providing reasons African telecom operators need network sharing and partnership with Starlink, he said:
“Africa is not 100% covered. It’s a continent where the population is sparse. There are many areas where putting up a tower and laying down fibre is not economically viable.”
He mentioned that this provided three choices. One. Forget about covering those areas infrastructure can’t reach owing to limited funds; therefore, large numbers of Africans remain outside the connected world. “Now that is not something that we are here for,” he said.
Two. Find funds and install the infrastructure, which doesn’t make economic sense. “So both these choices are not choices available to us.”
The third is the partnership with Starlink, which solves the coverage issue, according to the Airtel Chief. He said satellite technology can provide connectivity in areas where terrestrial networks do not reach.
“And that is the reason we signed up this agreement with Starlink,” he said.
In early August, Airtel launched Africa’s first commercial satellite-to-mobile service in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) through a partnership with Starlink. The idea is also nearing launch in Kenya, with plans to do the same across its 14 African markets.
“This agreement brought us enterprise connectivity. A small enterprise in a rural area has the same right to operate as a small enterprise in an urban area. But they don’t have access to connectivity in the absence of a terrestrial network. With Starlink connectivity or satellite connectivity, we can solve that problem,” Sunil Taldar, Airtel Africa CEO, explained.
