How are the mighty fallen. Vodafone and Telefonica, the Spanish operator which owns O2, are now sharing their mobile networks in a deal will reduce the total number of cellphone masts in operation.
Vodafone and Telefonica are also talking about a future co-operation in providing wireless services.
The Telefonica-Vodafone agreement means there will be a consolidation, i.e. an overall reduction, in existing mast sites, and a joint building of future mast sites.
A couple of years ago, it was Vodafone and
So consolidation in the wireless telco industry is proceeding apace yet the wireless industry is, by the standards of most industries, still in its infancy.
The first GSM network was set up only 18 years ago. It was only nine years ago that the biggest suckers in wireless history, Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, and Hutchison, paid the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown £22.5 billion for UK 3G licenses.
"By reducing our costs in areas of the business that customers don't see, we can ensure that we invest in areas they truly value," said Matthew Key, CEO of Telefonica Europe, while Michel Combes, CEO of Vodafone Europe, the deal will: "Enable us to focus our resources on developing more innovative and market leading services."
Ha! Since when has Vodafone developed innovative and market leading services? Remember location-based services? It's the Apple apps developers who develop truly innovative and market leading services."
What the network people should concentrate on is getting a first class network set up.
Why can I get a good wireless signal in my garden but not in my sitting room? Why can I get a decent signal in the car park of the Eight Bells in Ewell but not in the saloon bar of the same pub?
It's understandable if the men of limited imagination who run our mobile network operators can't generate innovative services, but it's unacceptable if they can't maintain a decent network.
And that's all we ask of them.
Asking too much, I fear. These operators provide an abysmal service, have a complex and irrational pricing structure, and have more signal failures than the rail network - no, hang on, that last one was an exaggeration.
Kick out the top earners and nationalise all the networks, I say!
Peter, Hear Hear