IHS Holdings is looking to improve local telecom infrastructure coverage capacity, following its acquisition of Airtel Rwanda towers, Ayokunle Iluyemi, IHS Rwanda’s managing director, has said.

IHS is the largest mobile telecoms infrastructure provider in Africa.

"We will be investing more money to improve infrastructure coverage and capacity. We already renovated the MTN towers we took over this year to increase up times,” he said in an interview with The New Times on Wednesday.

The firm acquired over 550 MTN Rwanda towers early this year, enabling the telecom company to concentrate on their core business.

The mobile infrastructure provider announced the acquisition of about 200 towers from Airtel Rwanda for an undisclosed amount this week. It also took over the telecom’s towers in Zambia.

Under the terms of the deal, Airtel will become a tenant on the towers and collocation services will also be offered to its competitors in the market under a 10-year renewable contract, Iluyemi said.

"It frees them from managing the towers, which is not part of their core business, and we will help drive cost-efficiencies throughout the industry by using shared passive infrastructure,” Iluyemi said.

He noted that the arrangement benefits Rwanda’s mobile network operators in terms of lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and accelerated network rollout times, as well as higher network capacity and improved quality of service.

Over 7.6 million people of Rwandan’s 11.5 million population have mobile phones, according to October statistics from the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (Rura), representing a 73 per cent penetration rate. The local telecom market is shared among three operators – MTN, Tigo and Airtel.

Subscribers have often complained of disruptions in voice calls and cases of dropped calls. In spite of the numerous measures the telecoms have taken to upgrade the network, the cases are still rampant.

Commenting on the deal, Airtel Rwanda managing director Teddy Bhullar said: "IHS has a proven track record in passive infrastructure management in Africa and we look forward to working with them in Rwanda. This agreement will accelerate infrastructure sharing among operators and benefit customers in form of affordable tariffs and wider network coverage, which is what we are looking to offer.”

Iluyemi said they have built 34 new towers around the country this year, adding that the firm targets to increase the number to 50 next year.

IHS has operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Rwanda, where it manages over 21,000 towers.