­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.