Britain’s four largest operators have reportedly signed an agreement to refrain from any litigation for a month in the fallout of Ofcom’s decision to allow Everything Everywhere to launch 4G before its rivals.
The Financial Times reports, with…
Britain’s four largest operators have reportedly signed an agreement to refrain from any litigation for a month in the fallout of Ofcom’s decision to allow Everything Everywhere to launch 4G before its rivals.
The Financial Times reports, with reference to unnamed sources, that the outgoing culture secretary Jeremy Hunt gathered together CEOs of Everything Everywhere, O2, Three and Vodafone in a bid to stop spiralling legal action against Ofcom and between rival operators.
Everything Everywhere, a joint venture between Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and France Telecom’s Orange, was authorised by Ofcom in August to use its 1800 MHz licenses for LTE and WiMAX, giving it a headstart for 4G. Its rivals will have to wait until the upcoming 4G auction to get their hands on appropriate frequencies. Any legal action could potentially delay the tender.
The JV had been told by the regulator that they could start offering 4G from today’s date, but the operator has agreed not to launch 4G services within the next month as part of the cooling-off deal with its rivals.
Talks will now begin between the parties as a way forward is sought.
Everything Everywhere launches 4G brand
Meanwhile, Everything Everywhere has launched EE – a new brand from the JV that will exclusively offer 4G. Testing of the operator’s LTE network has now begun in a number of cities and the company expects its 4G services to cover 70% of the population by 2013, and 98% by 2014.
EE also announced a fibre broadband service to homes and businesses with fixed-line internet speeds that the company says will be typically ten times faster than today’s average broadband speeds.
EE will also become the new name of the Everything Everywhere business and its network
“It’s a good time to be launching a new mobile brand in the UK,” Informa analyst Mark Newman commented. “EE will, to all intents and purposes, be a new network but crucially, one which has excellent coverage to compete with the existing players. This is what has made it difficult for new operators like 3 in the past.”
