Despite Portugal’s turbulent economy, Telcabo, a leading MSP in the country, has used the experience and expertise gained from working in the country to secure overseas contracts across two continents. We spoke to Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director at Telcabo, who has over 20 years of experience working in mobile, fixed networks and telecom services in Portugal, to ask him about how the Portuguese market has developed and what the tower landscape looks like right now.
TowerXchange: Can you introduce Telcabo, your offering and your footprint?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
Telcabo is a service company providing a global services offering for telecoms and energy networks. It has an end-to-end approach, from design to deployment and maintenance, complemented by network infrastructure solutions including towers, shelters, data centres, camouflage solutions and cells-on-wheels.
Telcabo’s biggest customers are major carriers and vendors in the countries where we are active. We’re not just about deployment, we also do engineering and operations. The goal is to provide a 360º view to the customer, who looks to Telcabo as a partner throughout the lifecycle of the network.
With considerable international presence – projects accomplished in 30 countries, on four different continents – and permanent operations in the UK, Ireland, Morocco and Angola, as well as Portugal, we have a €140mn turnover and are looking to grow. That’s where the foreign markets tend to be strategic and we’re putting considerable focus on Ireland and the UK where there could be interesting growth in energy and in telecoms as well.
An important differentiator is our strong in-house knowledge, from engineering to deployment, commissioning, maintenance and optimisation. We are able do it all with our own staff, if required, which together with a considerable number of resources, allows an excellent response to customers while ensuring superior delivery and control.
TowerXchange: As a Portuguese company, how have you seen the Portuguese market developing?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
The telecom market in Portugal is very mature and competitive, with all mobile operators offering mobile broadband services in 4G, as part of a 4-play commercial offer.
The growth over the last few years in Portugal has been fueled by convergent offer bundles rather than just by TV or internet services. This convergent offer is very powerful and the market has changed completely. five years ago, over 90% of mobile subscriptions were prepaid, now it’s nearer 50%, so these bundles are very important in shaping the market. It’s one of the drivers for market consolidation, with the operator NOS appearing as a result of the merger of cable and mobile operators.
A fixed broadband service is also widely available with considerable FTTH deployment going-on. Telcabo is an active player in both mobile broadband modernisation projects and in FTTH network deployment and maintenance programmes.
TowerXchange: The Portuguese economy is under pressure at the moment; what actions are being taken by Portuguese firms to mitigate this?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
The Portuguese economy has been very challenging and we have to make the most of these difficulties. Telcabo, and other firms, must continue to have confidence, pursue innovation, new skills and competencies which allow us to expand to new markets and geographies. We want to continue to serve our customers in Portugal and other geographies.
TowerXchange: With three operators in the market and extensive coverage across the country, how easy do you think it would be for an incoming towerco to increase their tenancy ratio towards 2?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
The Portuguese market has gone through a phase of consolidation which resulted in three operators providing fully convergent offerings. Further consolidation and operational efficiency calls for new business models.
From an engineering and technical point of view, with many of the sites being located in the same area, there’s no problem transferring to a single location. From an economic point of view there could be some challenges as all three have their own networks and this could potentially make it more difficult to transfer the assets to a tower company and justify a sound business case.
There has been a slowdown in terms of new sites but there is still some investment in network modernisation which is carefully planned and sharing is an important part of that analysis. Tower sharing is in practice, but not many sites are shared. These tend to be on a case-by-case basis with DAS projects being the exception.
One can find several buildings whose rooftops are used by several operators, but these don’t result from sharing agreements, but rather from each operator adjusting its service to its customer base
One can find several buildings whose rooftops are used by several operators, but these don’t result from sharing agreements, but rather from each operator adjusting its service to its customer base. The number of towers or sites tends to be directly proportional to market share with Portugal Telecom having the largest number, followed by Vodafone and NOS in mobile service.
TowerXchange: Altice are focusing on reducing opex for Portugal Telecom. In your experience, where do smart operators in Portugal look for opex savings in their tower networks?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
Towers are not an isolated entity, they are considered as part of the network infrastructure and operators have optimised these costs for many years. Tower sharing and the utilisation of networks to provide new services are effective ways to reduce capex and opex, but major effort has been put into optimising and controlling opex for all their operations including network infrastructure. A good example of this is the recent award to Telcabo of a five year managed services contract to maintain the whole network. They look to the network infrastructure as a whole and try to optimise.
TowerXchange: What does Portugal’s network topography look like? How reliant are operators on rooftops in urban areas? Are pylons, churches, water towers etcetera used extensively?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
Portugal is characterised by a combination of flat and mountain terrain. More than 90% of the population lives on a coastal strip of 50km. We do have services that cover 100% of the population and territory.
When you look at the urban areas, it raises new challenges in terms of installing new sites. Telcabo mediates between landlords and local authorities when it comes to determining the best solution for new sites. Rooftops, when available, are a very clever solution, as is the usage of water depots, light structures or camouflage solutions, because it allows a good integration in the landscape. A very popular solution are the creation of fake fiberglass chimneys in which we install antennas on rooftops.
Most of our projects are turnkey and Telcabo becomes responsible for addressing all the different activities involved in maintaining the network. We engineer the solutions, speak to landlords, municipalities and mediate with all the parties. Often the local population can be reluctant but they understand if they want to use their mobiles and have good service a balance needs to be found.
Having camouflaged solutions is important. With the present need of the operator to get closer to the end user, they need to have creative solutions to make things easier.
TowerXchange: What do you know about Portuguese broadcast infrastructure? How many towers do RTP own? Are they used for telecoms purposes at all?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
The dawn of the digital broadband TV service produced a change in the broadcast scenario in Portugal, as this role was assumed by a telecom operator; Portugal Telecom and uses their existing network. The former national broadcaster, RTP, continues to broadcast radio signals and their towers essentially consist of high height towers; situated at high locations to maximise coverage
TowerXchange: Tell us about Telcabo’s future plans; how important is Portugal to you and where do you see growth?
Miguel Sampayo Ribero, International Sales Director, Telcabo:
We are a company which looks to the future and Portugal continues to play a key role as it houses the relevant know-how and expertise which fuels many of our international operations. The maturity, sophistication and advance of telecoms in Portugal, give us an edge to grow externally.
We are seeing growth in broadband network development and also in managed services; although we have a broader view of this, not just limited to deployment or maintenance, but as a way to transform network operations management, to look not just from an infrastructure or active equipment perspective but to transform it as a whole.
Telcabo is investing in this transformation and see a lot of growth in this area, operators need to focus on servicing their customers and developing new services, we can free them from this daily activity of managing their telecoms network.
We see pressure on operators to bring capacity coverage closer to the user, which requires new ideas and ways of providing services. We’ve been very supportive of those changes and transformations and can help with our solutions; faster time to service and lower TCOs. We offer smaller lighter structures to address specific capacity needs as there are far fewer macro sites being built.
