The European Commission has decided to allow limited 3G infrastructure sharing in the UK. Roaming will not include the top ten cities in the UK but be limited to smaller cities and rural areas. National roaming in smaller cities can benefit from an exemption form the antitrust rules until 31 December 2007 for rural areas the exemption expires on 31 December 2008. The Commission said that national roaming between licensed network operators benefits consumers by allowing the operators involved to offer better and quicker coverage, especially in less built-up and more remote areas of the UK.
Commenting on the case, Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said: "This decision strikes the right balance between infrastructure competition in 3G markets and the immediate consumer benefit of having faster and wider roll-out of advanced 3G services. It gives guidance to mobile operators on the extent of co-operation that it permissible at this important juncture for the roll-out of 3G services across the EU".
T-Mobile and mmO2 entered into agreements to share 3G site infrastructure ('site sharing') and to roam on their 3G networks in the UK and Germany. In February 2002 the parties asked the Commission for clearance or, alternatively, an exemption of their agreements under the antitrust rules.
The Commission's investigation revealed that the agreement on site sharing does not restrict competition. The agreement on national roaming can be exempted from the competition rules for a period until 31 December 2007 for small cities and 31 December 2008 for rural areas.
Site sharing between the companies does not restrict competition because coverage of the agreement is restricted to sharing basic network infrastructure such as masts, power supply, racking and cooling. It also widely promoted for environmental and health reasons as a matter of public policy at national and EU level. National roaming between the network providers does - on the one hand - limit network-based competition with respect to coverage, retail prices, quality and transmission speeds, but, - on the other hand it does promote market entry which leads to better and quicker 3G service coverage.
Coverage will be accelerated in rural areas. National roaming in rural areas of the UK is therefore exempted from the antitrust rules until 31 December 2008. In some circumstances, national roaming can even be beneficial in urban areas, as long as it is limited to a short start-up period and helps new and innovative 3G services to be available earlier to customers. Therefore roaming in urban areas is exempted from the antitrust rules until 31 December 2007 especially since the companies will only roam in a number of smaller cities covering less than 10% of the UK population and in none of the ten biggest cities.
The decision sets the parameters for a similar decision that is expected in the near future with respect to the German network sharing agreement between the same parties.
In March 2003, the companies informed the Commission that they would no longer be roaming in the ten biggest cities in the UK. Once the parties have identified proprietary business secrets, the full text of the decision will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities."
Posted to the site on 2nd May 2003
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/8794.php