Vodafone and Telefónica to share networks

Vodafone and Telefónica are planning to share more of their mobile telephone network infrastructure in the UK in a bid to cut costs, improve coverage for users and accelerate the development of fourth-generation services.

The two groups said they intended to create a joint venture in which all of their towers, masts, radio equipment and local transmission kit would be pooled, in a move that would create a national grid of 18,500 sites. Telefónica operates the O2 mobile telephone service in the UK, where the market leader by number of subscribers is Everything Everywhere, a joint venture between Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and France Telecom’s Orange. O2 and Vodafone are second and third, respectively. The formal joint venture between the Spanish company and Vodafone – which will not affect the way they compete for customers – is an extension of a collaboration agreed in 2009, which did not cover all sites or radio and local transmission equipment.