THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF A TELECOM INFRASTRUCTURE SHARING

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (TISMS) AT HUTCHISON LANKA PVT LTD

CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Today almost everybody owns a mobile phone and uses the communication networks and
the internet strongly. As a result, the telecommunication industry continues to be the
epicenter of growth and innovation in any industry. As at2020 there are around 7.7 billion
active mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide, which is an enormous rise from 3.3
billion just 5 years ago [ CITATION Bus20 \l 1033 ]. Due to this growth considerable advances are
required to be made in aspects such as technology advancements, management
efficiencies, improving telecommunication infrastructure etc.

Sri Lanka being a developing country does not have the 100% coverage experienced by the
highly technologically advanced and developed countries. Therefore, considerable advances
are required to increase the penetration of mobile services in rural areas of the country.
Furthermore, due to the civil war which was prevalent in the country for almost 40 years,
the northern and north east regions of the country have been completely eliminated from
the natural network development projects carried out by the mobile operators in the
country.

Furthermore, the mobile telecommunications market of Sri Lanka is highly competitive with
the availability of 4 major service providers (Dialog, Mobitel, Airtel and Hutch). Therefore,
the providers are much less reluctant in high sunk investments as the need to recover these
expenditures by charging heavily from the already shy consumer is discouraged. These
expenditures usually make the mobile services less affordable and may discourage
operators to innovate and migrate to new technologies in emerging markets. It may also
cause licensed mobile network operators to obstruct the entry of new operators in the
market and additionally, it may be too costly for new entrant operators to rollout mobile
networks in rural and less populated areas, resulting in exclusion of a part of the population
or certain regions from access to mobile telecommunication services

As a solution, infrastructure sharing was introduced to the industry as earlier as the year
2000. Passive infrastructure sharing is the process of sharing physical space, but having
separate networks. Therefore, the vertical space of telecommunication towers as well as
the land space and other rack space/ cable ladder space etc. are leased to other operators
according to a pre-agreed contract between the parties.

There are many advantages of Passive infrastructure sharing such as decreasing the CAPEX
and OPEX of mobile infrastructure, healthy competition between operators, environmental
benefits, telecom regulatory and other government body’s ease of operation etc, resulting
an increase in infrastructure sharing in daily operations. Therefore, a proper system to
 manage the Infrastructure sharing process, approval process, financial process, database
management etc. is vital.

The automation and digitalization of this process is the most viable solution, thus
implementing a Telecom Infrastructure Management System (TIMS) at Hutchison Lanka Pvt.
Ltd. However, the pros of implementing such a system maybe, there are many
disadvantages as well. Therefore, this study involves an in depth analysis of the
effectiveness of implementation of Infrastructure Sharing Management System and
integrating it to manage the process of infrastructure sharing in the company.

1.2 Research Problem Identification

1.21 Symptoms of the Problem

In analyzing the data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Board of Sri Lanka (TRC SL), of
June 2020, it is quite evident that the demand for mobile telecommunication is
continuously growing.

*Note: the anomaly of June 2020 is due to the effects of the global pandemic virus COVID 19

The continuous growth in the demand results in the increase in need for wider and more
developed telecom infrastructure, where telecom infrastructure sharing has been used
progressively more as a successful solution, to cater with to this continuous growing
demand.
When analyzing the growth of infrastructure sharing of Hutch Lanka Pvt Ltd for the past 5
years, it is obvious that the operation of “Infrastructure sharing” has grown significantly.
Also the revenue generated from this has grown, making this a highly significant mode of
income for the finances of the company. Therefore, establishing a digital mode (TISMS) for
all operations pertaining to infrastructure sharing operations is highly effective.

This paper focuses on the effectiveness of establishing such a system for Infrastructure
Sharing. Negative and positive arguments such as the difficulty of integrating the system,
cost of customizing and operationalizing, employee satisfaction, reducing the time and
efforts of operations will be discussed in detail to finally verify if implementation of such a
system will be effective (viable) at Hutchison Lanka Pvt Ltd.

1.22 Justification of the Problem

Although many studies show that establishing a software to manage Infrastructure sharing
improved the overall effectiveness and increased the profitability, the actual results of many such
projects had a significant failure to obtain such benefits. For example, the failure of Tims integration
project at Robi Axiata Ltd. Bangladesh after the merger with Bharti Airtel Ltd in Nov 2016 (Company
sources). But the current demand for the implementation of the TIMS software at Hutch is also at an
all-time high.

Hutch Lanka Pvt Ltd completed the merger with Etisalat Lanka Pvt Ltd in November 2018, with a
controlling stake of 85% (Etisalat Group has 15% ownership). This deal has solidified Hutch’s position
at the third place in terms of share in the Sri Lankan mobile telecommunications market, with its
lead over fourth-placed Airtel now over 8% [ CITATION Mad18 \l 1033 ]. The company also completed the
4G Network project in February 2020[ CITATION Hut20 \l 1033 ],therefore the tower infrastructure has
been increased to 2500+ (Company sources). As of this year the company therefore has a significant
increase in tower infrastructure while also engaging in a company restructure due to the merger,
being in the unique position of experiencing a tumultuous environment to launch the software and
integrate it to the operations.
According to Gourhant (2011), there are many technical constrains experienced in passive
infrastructure sharing such as verification of the qualifying sites / towers to share (tower loading,
electromagnetic compatibility, models, site area, optimizing 2G3G), installation of equipment on the
shared site (access and safety, engineering site deployment schedule of operators) other constraints
pertaining to the operation and maintenance of equipment (on-site, monitoring and steering of
networking equipment) etc. [CITATION Dja11 \l 1033 ]. It should be noted that many of these constraints
can be complete eliminated, such as tower loading calculation, verifying compatibility, optimization
etc through the TISMS software, while other constraints such as Site access and safety can be
optimized. However, significant effort and resources should be perished for successful customization
and integration.

The main reason of failure is that implementation, and integration requires a huge investment
in money, resources and time (Azhar & Mallikarjuna, 2016). Furthermore TISMS is a software which
should be highly personalized and further developed (Infosoft company sources). Also, the exact
cost of the software implementation can be unpredictable as the organizations take more time to
plan for their project costs which normally will cause over budgets (Hussain, 2016).

Hence, even though at a glance, implementing the software to the company may seem viable, it is
significant and highly valuable to seek the effectiveness of TISMS implementation at Hutch, to meet
the company goals, requirements and satisfaction level of the parties involved in the company.

1.23 Defining Research Problem

It is a popular belief and trend that digitalization and integrating a software application to automate
business processes is highly effective; but this is not always the case. Therefore, to critically examine
the advantages and disadvantages of implementation of a telecom infrastructure sharing
management system (TISMS) at Hutchison Lanka Pvt Ltd and explore the challenges experienced
due to this integration.
1.3 Research Questions

How is the operations efficiency of the use of ISMS for Infrastructure sharing processes at
Hutch?
How
What is the impact of Reliability on Effectiveness of software?
What is the impact of Software Ease of Use on the Performance of Business?
What is the impact of Software Data Quality on the Performance of Business?
What is the impact of Software Efficiency on the Performance of Business?

1.4 Objectives of the study

To investigate the impact on operations efficiency when using ISMS for Infrastructure Sharing
To investigate the level of data quality with the use of ISMS

To investigate the impact of Software Ease of Use on the Performance of Business

To investigate the impact of Software Data Quality on the Performance of
Business
To investigate the impact of Software Efficiency on the Performance of Business

1.5 Significance of the study

From an economical and practical point of view, network sharing is a large and complex process
that requires a number of managerial resources.[ CITATION Dja11 \l 1033 ]

In infrastructure sharing the time used to obtain a sharing approval from the operator by the
requested party is highly valuable, because of the time sensitivity of the rollouts, revenue
generation and for other policy makers (such as TRC SL, CEA), therefore the effective
establishment of a digital system maybe effective to eliminate the time lags. Furthermore,
factors such as high accuracy of the technical approval (3rd party infrastructure sharing
technical approval), real time database update (without additional human effort), efficient
information flow (engineering department, commercial department, finance dept. integration)
and centralized operation for infra sharing can be considered as some major advantages of
implementing the system.

However, it should be noted that although the advantages may seem high, the risk of
implementing and integrating the system effectively as a project has a high failure rate too.
Therefore, this paper strives to explore the risks and conditions that may affect the successful
implementation of TIMS in the company.

1.6 Limitations of the study

Even though software implementation for business processes is a relatively old concept
(specially ERP implementation), it should be noted that implementation of a system / software
for passive telecommunication infrastructure sharing, with a focus in revenue generation is
relatively new. Therefore, sources of previous studies and researches are considerably limited.

The independent variables of this research such as satisfaction levels and reliability is
susceptible to individual person’s usage and likeability.

1.7 Chapter Outline

(To be filled..)
CHAPTER TWO – CRITICAL REVIEW OF LITERATURE

“In Sri Lanka, the operation faced challenges in establishing its customer base during the year
following the Easter terrorist’s attacks and ongoing network integration, which resulted in increased
customer churn rates. Consequently, active customer accounts decreased 22% compared to 2018.
Through realization of cost synergies after the acquisition of Etisalat Lanka in late 2018 and focus on
gradually completing network integration and 4G network rollout, the Sri Lankan operation reported
EBITDA positive in the second half of 2019. The growth momentum is expected to continue in 2020” [
CITATION CKH19 \l 1033 ]

CHAPTER THREE – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 – Conceptual Framework of the research
3.2 – Development of Hypotheses (Optional)

3.3 – Operationalization
3.4 – Research Design
-Sampling Design
-Population

-Sample Selection Procedure

-Sample Size
-Data collection methods and Techniques Used for Research Analysis

CHAPTER FOUR – DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FIVE – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 – Summary of the Study

5.2 – Conclusion of the Study

5.3 – Recommendations

5.4 – Suggestion for Further Research

LIST OF REFERENCES

APPENDIX 1 – Questionnaire (Blank)/ Interview Guidelines vii

 APPENDIX 2 – Minutes of the Mandatory Supervisor’s Meeting viii

APPENDIX 3 – Ethics Application Form ix

APPENDIX 3 - Any Other Related Documents x

CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

1.2 – Research Problem Identification

- Symptoms of the Problem

- Justification of the problem

- Defining Research Problem

1.3 – Research Question

1.4 – Objectives of the Study

1.5 – Significance of the Study

1.6 – Limitations of the study

1.7 – Chapter Outline

CHAPTER TWO – CRITICAL REVIEW OF LITERATURE

CHAPTER THREE – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 – Conceptual Framework of the research

3.2 – Development of Hypotheses (Optional)

3.3 – Operationalization

3.4 – Research Design

-Sampling Design

-Population

-Sample Selection Procedure

-Sample Size

-Data collection methods and Techniques Used for Research Analysis

CHAPTER FOUR – DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FIVE – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 – Summary of the Study

5.2 – Conclusion of the Study

5.3 – Recommendations

5.4 – Suggestion for Further Research

LIST OF REFERENCES
APPENDIX 1 – Questionnaire (Blank)/ Interview Guidelines vii
APPENDIX 2 – Minutes of the Mandatory Supervisor’s Meeting viii
APPENDIX 3 – Ethics Application Form ix
APPENDIX 3 - Any Other Related Documents x

References
CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd, 2019. Annual Report- Telecommunications, Hong Kong: CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.
Davide Strusani, G. V. H., 2020. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/2d3c4eff-12a8-4b0b-b55d-9113a950ed33/EMCompass-Note-
79-Digital-Infrastructure-Sharing.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=n2dwWtn
Hutch Lanka Pvt Ltd, 2020. Hutch.lk. [Online]
Available at: https://hutch.lk/
[Accessed 22 September 2020].
Meddour, R., 2011. On the Role of Infrastructure sharing for Mobile Network Operators in Emerging Markets. On
the Role of Infrastructure sharing for Mobile Network Operators in Emerging Markets, Volume 1, p. 9.
Thavapalakumar, M., 2018. The Sunday Morning. [Online]
Available at: http://www.themorning.lk/3-mobitel-welcomes-hutch-etisalat-merger/
[Accessed 22 September 2020].

Chong, Yvonne & Nizam, Ismail. (2017). THE IMPACT OF ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE ON BUSINESS
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