• 10-year deal sees Arqiva expand its tower portfolio by 1,275 sites
• Contract enables Arqiva to open up additional nationwide resources to all wireless operators
• Significant expansion of Arqiva's existing SiteShare portfolio

Arqiva today announced that it has acquired exclusive rights to market 1,275 T-Mobile tower sites.  The 10-year deal, initially worth around £90 million to Arqiva, covers T-Mobile's own use of the towers and opens up the nationwide sites to all operators of mobile communications networks.  In a significant expansion of Arqiva's existing SiteShare portfolio, the acquisition enables Arqiva to offer its customers ready access to a greater range of sites, resulting in quicker and more straightforward expansion of their networks.

Arqiva will actively market the 1,275 T-Mobile sites to all the UK mobile operators, wireless broadband and business radio operators.  Working closely with T-Mobile, Arqiva will also develop the sites for additional capacity and offer a fully managed service to its customers.  By reducing the need for each operator to deploy stand-alone installations, Arqiva's SiteShare portfolio enables operators to extend coverage and capacity easily and predictably and at a much lower cost. 

Emin Gurdenli, Technical Director, T-Mobile said: "Arqiva's core business is site-sharing and their experience in the telecoms market and ability to offer a fully managed service meant that they were the perfect partner to manage and market our portfolio of towers."

Debbie Dickinson-Tame, managing director of Arqiva's Wireless Solutions division, added, "We're delighted to be expanding our SiteShare portfolio and offering improved, nationwide facilities to our customers.  We've been able to match current inter-operator commercial terms for these sites, meaning that we can offer access at very competitive rates."