If you can’t beat them, join them
Merger and acquisition activity is intensifying within the telco world at the moment and most observers expect this trend to continue. Over in the U.S. all eyes are on the T-Mobile and Sprint merger. Every year more and more large telecoms operators are acquiring or merging with rival companies. There are multiple advantages to this:
Competitor advantage – If you can’t beat them, join them. This is especially true for telco operators. When two big companies join forces they become an even greater threat to their biggest competition and can therefore dominate the market. In the case of the T-Mobile-Sprint deal, T-Mobile is the third largest wireless carrier in the U.S. and Sprint is the fourth. By merging they become a bigger threat to the two market leaders (AT&T and Verizon).
Combined customers and regions – A huge advantage to merging with their competitors is that by combining customers, they also combine regions. Operators can go from supplying services to just a few countries to a whole new continent overnight. For example, Vodafone’s €18bn acquisition of Liberty Global’s cable and broadband assets in 2018 saw their adoption of Liberty’s operations in Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.
Overall service improvement – Companies often rely on acquisition for an overall advancement of products and services and subsequently, more customers. Telco operators might acquire businesses in markets that they perhaps haven’t participated in before. For example, more enterprises are starting to offer a one-stop-shop for customers by offering a quad-play service. This proposes a services bundle of landline phone, broadband, TV and mobile all from one place. This means that acquiring new businesses to build up service offerings is attractive to many companies.
But what does this mean operationally?
In some cases it can mean that there is duplication of technical capabilities post-merger. Often operators need to grapple with the removal of redundant equipment and sites in order to release cost savings generated from reduced power consumption and other overheads associated with the infrastructure. On the other hand, they may find that they have inherited legacy equipment which needs to be adequately supported with the provision of spare parts – TXO can also help here.
Telecoms site surveys
A key factor when merging companies is network consolidation. However, once the process is complete there can be a significant quantity of serviceable equipment leftover that can be costly to dispose of. TXO is routinely invited to evaluate such sites to provide an estimate of value and to undertake the necessary works. We can de-install, catalogue by individual module part code and serial number, and make available hardware lists for potential re-deployment in the new network or for external re-sale and credit generation. TXO will undertake a full site survey prior to any de-installation work being carried out, and we’re here to answer any questions you have have.
Telecom equipment decommissioning
TXO’s team of asset recovery engineers are qualified to safely and reliably perform telecom equipment de-installation and decommissioning services. TXO Systems boasts global experience in managing complex reverse logistics programmes for the telecoms industry. This industry experience has yielded substantial insights for TXO into best practice for telecom network de-installation, telecom surplus recovery and the decommissioning and recovery of old or obsolete telecom network equipment. We will make sure that your building is restored to its original state ready to be handed back to the landlord.