A historic agreement has been reached in Britain by two of the country's five mobile operators - Orange and Vodafone - to share their respective Radio Access Networks or RANs. This will not only cover their existing 2G networks but also current and future 3G capacity. In theory the agreement should make it easier for both to provide blanket 3G coverage for the UK. As Orange UK CEO, Bernard Ghillebaert, put it, "As the industry matures we must look at new ways to serve our customers and this provides a common sense approach to network roll out and management in the twenty-first century." All that the pair are really doing is sharing the radio bit. Which makes perfect sense as they use different technology for 2G, yet the majority of base stations can now be configured to transmit more than one operator's signal. This leaves each operator free to determine its own service offering using its own spectrum. The operators can even paint the move as being 'green'. Since they are effectively sharing sites, masts and antennae, there won't be a need to duplicate such installations. They're still working out how they can charge each other for access to the RAN. After all, somebody's got to maintain the combined networks and pay for rolling out new bits. This leaves the question of how their rivals will respond. The obvious next coupling would be O2 and 3. That's because 3 uses O2's 2G network in the first place. And O2's 3G roll out has been much more leisurely than its rivals. So in a nutshell, it's T-Mobile which is most commercially threatened by the new Orange/Vodafone alliance.
 

The full Inquirer story ... Vodafone and Orange to share radio networks

MicroTune's TV signal challenge

The full Inquirer story ... MicroTune wills to disrupt TV signals

Vodafone reaches deadline for Hutch bids

Hutch, the Indian mobile operator run by Hutchison India (HTIL) and Essar, might be within Vodafone's grasp given that Hutchison has asked for final bids to be submitted by this weekend. Most observers think this will be a four horse race. Vodafone, Essar and Reliance are well-known to be interested. However, the company run by the Hinduja brothers is now rumoured to have formed an alliance with a major overseas operator to. Could it be Orascom, Telecom Italia Mobile, or Qatar Telecom? Another new name in the frame is Russia's Altimo. Plus there's a new twist to the tale. SingTel has said that it's not entirely convinced that Vodafone's stake in rival Indian mobile operator, Bharti Airtel is actually up for sale. That's curious because SingTel wants it and Vodafone will almost certainly need to sell its 10 per cent stake if it is successful in buying into Hutch. Which suggests that Vodafone can't be that confident of winning. The real unknown factor is Essar's ability to have first dibs at Hutchison's stake when it is put up for sale. Significantly Mobile Insight was contacted over this point by a prominent Indian attorney, K.V Dhananjay. His opinion is that, "In view of the fact that differences exist between Essar and HTIL over the interpretation of the Right of First Refusal (ROFR), it is only reasonable to expect that Essar will pursue its claims aggressively." Conversely, "It is equally possible that given HTIL’s specific denial of any such ROFR by re-stating and qualifying the same ROFR, I do not really foresee any level of ambiguity here that may lead to prolonged litigation". In effect, he's predicting that one side will back down. Which ties in very nicely with the rumour that Essar might acquire the entire stake, giving it 100 per cent control. And then sell a chunk to an international operator.

The full Inquirer story ... Vodafone's Indian dilemma closing

www.hutch.in

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