What Will It Take to Scale Neutral Host Networks?
Leaders from Proptivity, Airspan Networks, and CloudExtel explore the economics, operating models, and partnerships behind shared digital infrastructure.
An office building needs reliable indoor mobile coverage. A hospital needs connectivity that supports patients, staff, and visitors. A growing data center market needs fiber connections that can keep pace with investment.
Across these environments, demand for connectivity raises practical questions: who builds the infrastructure, who pays for it, and how can multiple service providers use it efficiently?
In a conversation hosted by Vishal Mathur, Chief Commercial Officer at Telecom Infra Project, the co-chairs of TIP’s OpenHOST Project Group explore how neutral host models can help answer those questions.
Morgan Curby of Proptivity, Shirish Nagaraj of Airspan Networks, and Kunal Bajaj of CloudExtel bring perspectives spanning indoor mobile networks, wireless technology, and shared fiber infrastructure. Their discussion points to a common requirement: successful deployments need technology, commercial incentives, and operating processes that work together.
Indoor connectivity is becoming a building requirement
For Proptivity’s Morgan Curby, indoor mobile coverage is increasingly part of what tenants expect from a commercial property. Drawing on experience in the Nordics and the UK, he describes growing demand for high-performance digital indoor networks and earlier consideration of connectivity in building planning.
That creates an opportunity for shared infrastructure. A neutral host can provide an indoor network that supports multiple operators, helping property owners address coverage through a coordinated approach.
But demand alone does not settle the investment question. Operators and property owners still need a workable agreement on funding, responsibilities, and service delivery.
Deployment processes need to catch up with demand
Airspan’s Shirish Nagaraj highlights the importance of efficient digital architectures, including distributed antenna systems, alongside faster access to the operator connectivity needed to make them useful.
Different environments present different challenges. A major stadium may attract strong operator interest. A smaller enterprise building, hotel, or healthcare facility may face a more difficult path to securing participation and approvals.
The discussion examines the UK’s JOTS model as an example of operators establishing common requirements for indoor solutions. Clearer conditions can give neutral hosts a more predictable route to deployment.
The broader lesson is practical: technical readiness needs to be supported by repeatable approval and delivery processes.
Shared fiber is part of the same conversation
CloudExtel’s Kunal Bajaj brings the discussion to India, where high mobile data consumption and price-sensitive customers place pressure on network economics.
Sharing infrastructure can help spread deployment costs across customers and service providers. That principle extends to fiber connecting enterprises, mobile networks, data centers, and cable landing stations.
As investment in data centers grows, the infrastructure between those facilities becomes increasingly consequential. Bajaj describes how rights of way, excavation, road reinstatement, and local coordination influence the cost and speed of fiber deployment. Common ducts and coordination with public infrastructure projects offer ways to reduce repeated digging and support more efficient network expansion.
The business case varies by sector
The participants also make clear that the value of connectivity needs to be understood in the context of each customer.
For commercial real estate, reliable indoor coverage can support tenant experience and the attractiveness of a property. In healthcare, the case includes essential communications and public safety. In manufacturing, shared infrastructure may offer opportunities to add private network capabilities for enterprise applications.
Explaining those benefits sector by sector can help customers understand the investment and strengthen demand for deployments.
Scaling requires a wider group of decision-makers
The conversation closes with a call for greater knowledge sharing, clearer commercial models, and closer engagement with public authorities.
That engagement extends beyond telecom regulators. Urban planning teams, public works departments, building authorities, and municipalities influence how infrastructure is installed and accessed.
Through OpenHOST, TIP brings together stakeholders across shared wireless and wireline infrastructure. The opportunity is to use deployment experience, case studies, and common requirements to help more organizations move forward.
The next phase of growth will depend on making the benefits clear and the delivery model repeatable.
Learn more about TIP’s OpenHOST Project Group: https://www.telecominfraproject.com/openhost
Continue the conversation at FYUZ 2026, November 3–5 at The Westin Seattle: https://www.fyuz.org
