What do you think of this approach? Is collaboration a good idea, to help get 4G in the hands of users faster, or would you have concerns about competition implications — or is there sufficient consumer benefit here?
Four of the UK’s largest mobile service providers have come together in a bid to speed up the rollout of 4G in the UK.
EE, O2, Three and Vodafone have formed a new company in conjunction with the UK government and communications regulator Ofcom. The company’s primary mandate is to ensure that consumers continue to receive Freeview TV signals unimpeded by LTE networks.
Friday, 19 October 2012
Four of UK’s largest mobile operators enter joint venture to bring about 4G
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Hi Neil;
ReplyDeleteWell I was actually very impressed that all four providers felt able to come together to work as one with the government and Ofcom on expediting 4G roll-out. This has to be good news for all concerned. I don't think that there's much danger of a cosy club developing - relationships between highly competitive operators can be quite fraught at the best of times (see Ofcom's list of open disputes!), and I see from the Secretary of State's letter, that two of the operators almost took Ofcom to court over spectrum sharing; so I think on balance I'm more grateful that they are getting along than I am worried about anti-competitive practice!
It's an interesting one, isn't it!
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, operators have a common interest in sustaining the future, and relevance, of cellular networks — they all have made, and continue to make, significant investments in network infrastructure which needs to remain relevant.
That being said, we are seeing a lot of collaboration between competitors — "EE" as a result of Orange and T-Mobile, Project Beacon bringing together O2 and Vodafone radio access networks, and Project Oscar bringing together O2, EE and Vodafone for mCommerce services. The core networks may be separated, but, one might argue, that's about it.
Here, the outcome seems to be a beneficial one — by effectively removing any Art. 101 issues, perhaps 4G will be made available to more people, faster. It does also put pressure on Ofcom to sort out the auction rules, and to permit spectrum refarming more widely and quickly, to enable operators to free up spectrum for use with LTE services. Litigation may have been a distant threat, or something more realistic — there were definitely pros and cons on each side, with the risk of potentially crippling damages being particularly pertinent.
I think this ties in nicely with Zizi's post on the eCommerce board, about regulatory intervention in pricing — there are clearly circumstances when action which would normally be considered detrimental to be in the overall consumer interest.
Why it is in EE's favour to speed up the deployment of other LTE networks is perhaps more questionable, of course...
Very interesting posting Neil.
ReplyDeletewith the context of the article:
"The company’s primary mandate is to ensure that consumers continue to receive Freeview TV signals unimpeded by LTE networks."
it does not say much on how the spectrum or the deployment of the 4G infrastructure will look like... I am excited to see the progress of this cooperation and how "competition" will be framed here.