Cellnex France and Arteria sign a framework contract

Digital land planning

A win-win operation involving several hundred telecoms towers and land holdings

Paris, 21 January 2020. Cellnex France and Arteria have just announced that they have signed a framework contract for marketing and providing services linked to the 200 telecoms towers of the RTE group subsidiary, as well as over 600 land holdings where new towers could be built.

This framework contract was concluded for a ten-year period. This operation clearly marks Cellnex’s ambition to shore up its position as an independent telecommunications infrastructure operator in France by partnering with Arteria, a company that is present across all urban and rural regions and territories of mainland and overseas France, with a more or less dense coverage.

A framework contract in accordance with the “Mobile New Deal” initiative

 With a total of 9,500 sites in France, including the 5,700 recently acquired from the Illiad Group in late December 2019, the stock made available by Arteria (200 telecoms towers and more than 600 land holdings) will allow Cellnex to strengthen and increase its presence in the region. This ambition matches the intentions of both partners – Arteria’s baseline states “Let’s connect the territories” – but also with the agreement signed in 2018 by the public authorities and operators, the “Mobile New Deal”, which aims to ensure better coverage across the country. “Like the partnership signed in 2017 with SANEF, this framework contract with Arteria marks Cellnex’s ambition to establish a territorial presence” explains Vincent Cuvillier, Managing Director of Cellnex France. In this connection, the land holdings included in the framework contract signed by Cellnex and Arteria are cheaper to service and should therefore help to speed up the roll-out of new towers for use by operators in areas targeted by the “Mobile New Deal” in addition to the Cellnex’s plans to roll out 4,300 new sites in very dense areas over the next few years.

Making Cellnex’s expertise available to Arteria and operators

 To take full advantage of this framework contract, Arteria, a subsidiary of the RTE group, intends to draw on Cellnex’s expertise throughout the telecoms infrastructures value chain.

“Apart from the contracts marketed directly by Arteria, we are making all Cellnex’s know-how available to our partner for end-to-end management of all its projects” said Vincent Cuvillier, Managing Director of Cellnex France. “From construction to commissioning, from marketing to monitoring and providing services, we are making all our expertise available to Arteria and its MNOs clients.”

Patrick Larradet, Managing Director of Arteria, added “this framework contract with Cellnex is long-term and is compatible with our wish to provide solutions for digital development thanks to the presence of RTE in the country. Arteria will continue to market its own offers to operators, but the agreement signed with Cellnex aims to broaden our offers. In fact, the contract as drawn up allows us to benefit from the internationally acknowledged expertise of Cellnex’s teams. All of which guarantees our current and future operational clients optimal support and at no additional cost.”

About Cellnex Telecom

Cellnex Telecom is Europe’s leading operator of wireless telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructures with a the rest portfolio of 58,000 sites including forecast roll-outs up to 2027. The company operates in Spain, Italy, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Portugal.

Cellnex is active in four main areas: telecommunication infrastructures services; audiovisual broadcasting networks; security and emergency service networks and solutions for smart urban infrastructure and services management (Smart cities and the Internet of Things (IoT)).

The company is listed on the continuous market of the Spanish stock exchange and is part of the selective IBEX 35 and EuroStoxx 600 indices. It is also part of the FTSE4GOOD and CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) and “Standard Ethics” sustainability indexes.

About Arteria

Arteria, a subsidiary of RTE (Réseau de transport d’électricité) was created in 2002 and is an electronic communications operator responsible for operating RTE’s telecoms infrastructure (24,000 km of fibre optic networks, several thousand high-rise towers and sites). This network of optical fibre and high-rise towers and sites is available to all telecom operators and to local authorities as part of their public initiative networks (the networks managed by Arteria are mobilised in this way in almost 40 departments). Furthermore, Arteria provides the Internet of Things (IoT) to all regions, all local authorities, and all businesses, industrial, craft and agricultural.