What’s the Big Idea?  

Idea Cellular is looking to reduce its debt of 140 billion rupees ($2.21 billion) by selling its 11,000 cell towers throughout India. Idea Cellular is the third largest mobile service provider in India, and these assets have drawn the interests of Malaysia’s Axiata, Bharti Infratel, and American Tower Corporation. Idea’s towers have been the subject of several deal attempts over the past few years. American Tower currently owns over 13,000 towers across 22 telecom circles in India. “Spectrum policy is moving towards a very rational endgame, allowing the major operators in India to have enough spectrum to go ahead and deploy advanced data services like we’ve just talked about in the remarks, in India, so that’s a plus. And we’re seeing a pickup in business there, especially in build-to-suit towers as well as in co-locations in India. So I do think we’re at the beginning of an upward cycle in the India market for tower leasing,” James Taiclet noted on the April 30 conference call.