Each operator will over time take the responsibility for design, management and maintenance of the radio equipment as well as local transmission (that connects to each operator’s intelligent backbone network) in one half of the country. Telefonica UK will manage and maintain these elements in the East (including Northern Ireland and most of Scotland) and Vodafone UK in the West (including Wales).

“This partnership is about working smarter as an industry, so that we can focus on what really matters to our customers delivering a superfast network up to two years faster than Ofcom envisages and to as many people as possible. One physical grid, running independent networks, will mean greater efficiency, fewer site builds, broader coverage and, crucially, investment in innovation and better competition for the customer”, said Ronan Dunne, CEO Telefonica UK.

Guy Laurence, CEO Vodafone UK said, “This partnership will improve the service that customers receive today and give Britain the 4G networks that it will need tomorrow.”

Just as under Cornerstone, the two companies existing network partnership, all shared sites will continue to carry Telefonica UK’s traffic on Telefonica’s spectrum and Vodafone UK’s traffic on Vodafone’s spectrum.

Both operators will continue to remain responsible for their own existing spectrum holdings and for fulfilling their own spectrum needs in the future. The launch of 4G services is subject to the outcome of the forthcoming Ofcom auction of new spectrum and both companies will act wholly independently in that auction.