Vodafone and 3 infrastructure sharing.

GIMP

Vodafone is in

advanced discussions with rival Hutchison Whampoa about merging their Irish telecoms infrastructure, the Financial Times reported today. The negotiations between Vodafone and Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate that operates the Three mobile brand in Ireland, to create a shared grid have reached agreement but have not been formally signed, the FT said.

The merger will create an equal joint venture structure that will own the telecoms equipment but they will maintain independent spectrum holdings and run competing retail services. A person with knowledge of the talks is cited as saying savings for each business could exceed 200 million pounds.

ballooba

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0704/breaking12.html

They merged in Australia with the subsequent grandfathering of the Three brand.

Kenno90

so does this mean that we could join 3 with vodafones coverage, thats enough for me to jump ship :P

jimmynokia

Kenno90 wrote: »

so does this mean that we could join 3 with vodafones coverage,

thats enough for me to jump ship :P

It will be interesting to see what happens here

PogMoThoin

It may mean little to the customer, they are not sharing spectrum, just sharing the masts. Each will have it's own independent network.

Sponge Bob

Hopefully voda takes over as they did in oz. looks like an orderly exit by 3 to me.

InvisibleBadger

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Hopefully voda takes over as they did in oz. looks like an orderly exit by 3 to me.

Looks like an end to cheap data so.

srsly78

PogMoThoin wrote: »

It may mean little to the customer, they are not sharing spectrum, just sharing the masts. Each will have it's own independent network.

They already share masts and even 2g. This just means 3g will be shared, so a degradation of service for vodafone customers

Max Power 2010

srsly78 wrote: »

They already share masts and even 2g. This just means 3g will be shared, so a degradation of service for vodafone customers

3G Won't be shared. Meteor have the same agreement with O2 for the past 12 Months now.

The idea is they will Share Infrastruture so each operator can reduce their costs, VF will dramitically reduces costs, and THREE will gain by jumping on a VF tower without the overheads.

New base station equipment on the Market (RBS6000) allows 2 Operators to run simultaneously on the same site, so electricity and base station is shared, however up on the Tower 3 and Vodafone will have there own equipment.

At the end of the day there is really no benefit to the customer, just a reduction on infrastructure costs for the operators.

Kenny Powers

The customer will benefit in poor coverage areas if 3 or Vodafone add extra cells to the masts?

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

drunkmonkey

Ahh ffs, don't tell me I have to share my 3G with all the yahoo's on Vodafone:(

h57xiucj2z946q

Will we get Vodafone's customer support? :P

GIMP

Will this resolve the 2g/3g switching issue that has plagued 3 since day one?

Nothingbetter2d

it has been confirmed today that they have made a tech share deal with each other...and comreg has approved it.

hopefully in the next few month three's coverage around the country will improve a massive amount and also vodafone's 3g coverage will improve alot too.

bbability

Alot to be gained on both sides. Early days yet but don't be surprised if the other providers hop on board. Lots of savings to be made for companies who share technology in this way. It's the future I tell you!

Sponge Bob

No good without full RAN sharing in rural areas ( most of the state in fact)