Telefónica and Vodafone announce milestone pan-European collaboration
Telefónica and Vodafone, two of the world’s largest telecommunications operators, recently announced a wide-ranging strategic programme to share mobile network assets across selected European operations.
As part of the collaboration, Telefónica and Vodafone are actively exploring opportunities to cooperate in related areas such as the provision of transmission services.
Telefónica and Vodafone will use the agreements to aid the roll out of their respective networks, enhancing service quality for customers in the longer term. The agreements will also reduce the environmental impact of both companies’ roll out activities, due to the consolidation of existing sites and joint build of new sites.
The programme is expected to deliver significant business benefits in the process, including the generation of cost savings amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds for both companies over the next 10 years.
The infrastructure sharing initiatives are broadly expected to enable both companies to:
• Offer enhanced quality of service levels within the network footprint to improve customers’ mobile experience as well as support the delivery of services such as mobile broadband to a greater number of customers across a wider coverage area
• Reduce the environmental impact of the network by lowering the number of sites required by each company
• Reduce network operating costs
• Continue to manage their traffic independently
• Jointly build new sites where opportunities exist
Matthew Key, CEO of Telefónica Europe, commented: “In a fast changing business climate, operators need to look at different ways to serve customers both now and in the future. This industry-leading collaboration means that Telefónica and Vodafone will continue to compete strongly against each other in local markets, while giving our customers enhanced mobile coverage in more places, using fewer mast sites. This will also create significant benefits for Telefónica shareholders. We are actively exploring additional areas for cooperation and, 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.
