Vodafone and Telefonica Announce Network-Sharing Deals

Two of the largest telecommunications operators in the world, Vodafone and Telefonica, announced today a wide-ranging strategic program through which they would share mobile network assets across different European operations. At the same time, the two companies will also work on cooperating in areas like the provision of transmission services.

The two carriers will use their partnership to help rolling out their respective networks, as well as for the enhancement of the quality of their services on a longer term. At the same time, the agreements are meant to reduce the environmental impact of the operators' roll-out activities driven by the consolidation of their existing sites, as well as by the joint building of new ones.

The new program announced by Vodafone and Telefonica is meant to provide the companies with significant benefits, such as cost savings that would total hundreds of millions of pounds for both of them over the following ten years.

At the same time, the infrastructure sharing initiatives should also enable the companies to offer enhanced service levels to improve the mobile experience of their users, reduce the number of sites needed by each company, reduce the environmental impact at the same time, as well as to reduce costs, jointly build new sites and manage their traffic independently. The cost reductions will translate into more investments in the development of innovative products and services for customers.

The joint building of new sites, as well as the consolidation of existing 2G and 3G mast sites would imply that both companies used the same site in areas where usually two would have been used. This way, in Germany the companies plan on sharing existing 2G and 3G sites, in Ireland they will open existing ones to share with the other party, while in the UK they will focus on joint building of new sites.

The two carriers already have a similar agreement concerning their networks in Spain. The new deal extends the existing one, which included shared usage of power, cabinets and mast, with a total of 2,200 sites shared, and the two companies will add more sites to the agreement. Vodafone and Telefonica also announced that they were considering the possibility of sharing transmission infrastructure, among other areas of co-operation.