The UK mobile industry needs to change and it needs to change now.

The UK mobile industry needs to change and it needs to change now.

The way I see it, the mobile phone industry has a couple of big problems that are only going to get worse and affect the industry as a whole.

These issues being

1. Each network needs its own tower to cover the same area.

2. Lack of competition due to high cost of entry.

How do we resolve this problem?  

Create a new company that is responsible for all the cell towers and mobile phone infrastructure throughout the UK in the same way Rail Track looks after the country's rail infrastructure which train operators pay Rail Track to use them.

Each company that currently owns towers, 3, 02, Vodafone, EE ect ect would then pay the cell tower company to use the towers and would remain reasonable for selling the service to end users.

What this could resolve?

1. Only one tower is needed to cover one area instead of a tower for each network.

2. More competition would be introduced into the industry as any one can pay the company that owns the towers and supply customers with SIM cards and service.

3. Better coverage for rural areas as only one third of the masts will be required compared with the current arrangement.

Yes this will mean the end of NVNO’s but the likes of Tesco Mobile can do a deal with the tower company and still supply service to its customers instead of being dependent on one of the bigger companies that currently have towers.

This will require a lot of government legislation, money and time but the sooner the process is started the sooner we can reap the benefits.