Orange and Vodacom are in discussions over infrastructure-sharing deals in Africa.

As reported by Bloomberg, these deals could help cut costs and may include agreements to share infrastructure and jointly build connectivity to rural areas.

The talks are centered around looking at agreements in overlapping markets, including Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The duo are said to also be reviewing where there are other opportunities to work together.

“Our aim is to potentially alleviate the costs of rollout and rural connectivity, helping to address cost to communicate and narrow the digital divide," said a Vodacom spokesperson to Bloomberg.

Vodacom is also said to be in talks with other service providers in other markets over similar deals.

There's no guarantee of a deal materializing, the publication noted.

Network sharing agreements are becoming more common for telcos looking to collectively provide enhanced connectivity in rural areas.

In the UK, all four networks have signed up to the Shared Rural Network, a UK government-run program, aimed at supporting some of the UK's most remote areas to increase all operators’ 4G coverage to 90 percent of UK landmass and their aggregate coverage to 95 percent by 2027.

Australian telcos TPG Telecom and Optus signed a network-sharing agreement to extend their respective networks earlier this month.