Knowing this limitation, Bharti and Vodafone wanted to play smart by signing an MoU. According to Akhil Gupta, the MoU had two parts: First, sharing of infrastructure without any equity linkages, and second a deliberate attempt should be made to merge both companies under one roof. But, some sources say the talks have failed, since the two companies have not been able to decide who will be the majority stakeholder in the JV company, and the economic benefit each party will get out of the final deal. And, it is not easy to understand the complications. But, if they patch up, it will be a big disadvantage to IP-1 players.

Tower subsidiaries do have problems. Other operators will not be comfortable sharing their business plan, as there is fear of passing competitive information to the parent company. Understanding this limitation, tower subsidiaries will initially focus more on setting up a large number of towers to gain competitive advantage in FY '09, and later they will focus on increasing tenants.

Speaking about the RTIL strategy, Ramesh Venkat says, "This year, there are not too many outside tenants. But in FY '09 they will increase, depending upon the rollout plans of other operators."

Being a tower subsidiary, the parent company will take an anchor tenant position in a majority of the towers, thereby taking prime slot. This is not beneficial for the number two and three tenants. The other question is how many existing towers can be shared since majority of the towers are deployed in urban areas, and majority are on rooftops where a maximum of two can share. Yet another question is: will existing ground-based towers support multiple tenants or do they need to be conditioned for multiple operators? And, the cost incurred and timeframe in conditioning these towers will not make them ready for day one with majority of towers.

On the other hand, IP-1 players have lot of advantage vis-à-vis operator subsidiaries. The IP-1 players have neither the network nor the tower to start with. But, they have an advantage vis-à-vis operator subsidiaries, as they are neutral and independent in nature. Apart from this, IP-1 players should constantly focus on quality of service and cost reduction, which can be further passed on to operators. Plus they have to focus on fast rollout of services. Even pan-India presence will provide a lot of cost advantages vis-à-vis localized presence. So, a majority is looking at a pan-India presence.

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