Vodafone prepares quad-play bundle (UK)
Vodafone UK is reportedly preparing to launch a quad-play mobile phone, home phone, broadband and TV package in the near future.
According to sources, it was working with BT Wholesale on a new service, which would be a quad-play offering similar to bundles offered by BT Retail, although exact details are still unclear.
UK Joint Venture achieves 12,000 joint 3G Base Station
According to UK based network infrastructure joint venture, it has now delivered more than 12,000 consolidated 3G sites for T-Mobile UK and Hutchison 3G UK (Three). The company, Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL) is a network joint-venture between Three and Everything Everywhere – itself the merged UK arms of Orange and T-Mobile.
The consolidation of the two networks has included the switching off of more than 5,000 sites – more than 2,000 of which have already been fully decommissioned.
Ericsson was the key service provider for the project and was responsible for network design and deployment, the acquisition and building of sites, capacity management, equipment swaps and vital upgrades. Millions of man-hours were committed by Ericsson to improve speeds and coverage for Three and T-Mobile customers.
Nokia Siemens Networks, MBNL’s sole 3G equipment supplier, provided the entire site installation work, third line operational support services, and spare parts and upgrades.
BT Wholesale provided the Ethernet backhaul to support delivery of mobile voice and data traffic to thousands of cell sites across the country. BT Wholesale’s work will also ensure the MBNL network continues to meet the capacity needs of the parent company’s customers. BT began work on delivering the managed service project in June 2009 and since then several hundred BT employees have been involved in delivering this project as planned.
Arqiva, the communications infrastructure and media services company, is MBNL’s planned cell site partner and has provided 5,100 sites to the consolidation project.
According to Emin Gurdenli, Vice President of Network Services at Everything Everywhere, network coverage and capacity is vital in providing a great customer experience so the success of MBNL in delivering 12,000 3G sites is great news for T-Mobile customers. The integration of a large number of former Orange cell sites into the network will also provide enhanced capacity and coverage to all of the company’s customers.
Big 3G Network Savings for Three and T-Mobile
Prior to Everything Everywhere being formed and the amalgamation of Orange and T-Mobile within it, Three had an agreement with T-Mobile to share a certain amount of their network transmitters etc. The agreement between Three and T-Mobile resulted in MBNL, the network joint-venture being formed.
Now that to Everything Everywhere is official and in place, the deal with MBNL remains in place. This means that Three and T-Mobile share 12,000 3G sites around the UK.
The sharing of sites includes: transmitters, base station equipment and backhaul connected to the operator’s core networks, the result is greater 3G coverage. There are also cost savings because in addition to sharing the costs for the 12,000 3G sites another 5000 will be turned off resulting in a much larger saving.
A number of companies have supported the project and these are Ericsson, BT Wholesale, BT and Arqiva.
O2 UK’s mobile, fixed networks to be consolidated by BT
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A five-year multi-million pound managed services contract has been signed between O2 UK and BT Wholesale. With this contract O2 UK aims to consolidate its mobile and fixed core networks into a single, cost-effective network using the BT 21CN platform.
A range of next-generation communications services for customers would be delivered and the capital expenditure would be reduced through a single, consolidated network.
O2 already receives a range of services from BT Wholesale including core network management support for O2′s mobile customers as well as a managed network service that is enabling O2 to serve the UK business market with fixed and broadband services.
