Originally Posted by clewsy:
“Its such an interesting setup really and very strange how its been done. It does seem that EE / Three got the head start on all of this, but with all the different kit specs knocking about this is going to make it hard to achieve maximum economies of scale. This seems to be the opposite with O2 / VF as people report the same constant kit is being installed in vast areas of the network. This will be a slower process but could really save a fortune in the longer term.
It makes sense really for site sharing, however when you get the odd few masts for single operators knocking about, seems to go against the whole notion of the agreement. I guess if it means nearly full coverage for most of the UK then it has to be good for the consumer so long as price competition remains.”
The headstart is what's actually causing all this. EE/3 (MBNL) got a headstart on the 3G share via 3-T-Mobile sharing almost a decade ago. That RAN share actually consolidated both networks' equipment to be all the same and got rid of the mish-mash of different kit specs, but that was only for 3G. They could not do the same for 2G because 3 has no 2G, and the 2G/4G refresh kit required by EE isn't wanted by 3. Hence T-Mobile retained their own existing 2G kit on their network, some of which is now getting pretty ancient.
It's because EE/3 have a recently refreshed and more up-to-date, consolidated 3G network without a mish-mash of different kit that it doesn't need to be upgraded again. That's why each operator is installing new kit for 4G only rather than integrated units like O2/VF.
It's only because O2/VF's network share so far has not shared equipment that they have ended up now with a giant mix of different equipment - and to be fair, even without the share each operator used a pretty considerable mix of different kit and vendors on their own - which is why the Beacon refresh is pulling all of that out and replacing it with a single integrated piece of kit for 2G, 3G and 4G. Furthermore it's giving their 3G networks an extensive, and much needed upgrade in the process, which EE/3 don't need to do.
While EE/3 are rolling out 4G on different kit for now, it'd be interesting to see what happens in 5-10 years time, when the current MBNL NSN 3G equipment becomes obsolete. Will they just switch it off, or will there be another round of consolidation and upgrades? In either case in that time O2/VF will have consolidated their 2G/3G/4G infrastructure into a single modular piece of kit, much like EE/3 have done with 3G now. Yet at the same time EE/3 will be left with a mish-mash of different kit and vendors on each site, much like VF/O2 are now, the exact opposite situation.
Basically VF/O2 are doing what EE/3 did 5 years ago and EE/3 are doing what VF/O2 did 5 years ago...