Vodafone's UK JV stagnating

WHILE 3 UK and T-Mobile happily go ahead with their joint venture - Mobile Broadband Network – the INQ has learnt that the wheels are still turning very slowly for Orange and Vodafone.

The pair still haven't come up with a name for the management company which will run their combined network, even though the 'historic agreement' was announced back in February 2007.
So it's still called the 'JV' for convenience sakes. Maybe they'll come up with something a bit more original than T-Mobile and 3 UK.

One of the excuses appears to be that the JV's submission to the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) is still pending, although our mole says something should happen any day now.

After that it'll be roughly three months before there's an official green light. Although given the existence of Mobile Broadband Network, it's hard to see how the OFT could say 'No'.

The three months should be taken up with the JV making a decision on who to outsource the project to. Apparently the front runners are: - Nokia Siemens Networks; Ericsson Services; Alcatel Lucent; BT and Huawei. Those five will be narrowed down to two before the final selection is made.

The favourite appears to be Ericsson – but then Ericsson is already favourite for Mobile Broadband network, too.
So it's looking like Q2 2008 before anything really starts to happen. It's a bit of a contrast to India where Vodafone, Bharti and Idea have already set up an infrastructure sharing company, Indus Towers. µ