T-Mobile and 3 UK invest £400m in 3G network upgrade

Upgrade contract aims to give better mobile broadband for 98 per cent of UK users

T-Mobile and 3 UK's joint venture network sharing firm, Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL), has awarded a £400m 3G mobile broadband upgrade contract to Nokia Siemens Networks.

MBNL has said that the deal would put 98 per cent of the UK population in range of the company's shared mobile broadband infrastructure.

The deal should boost T-Mobile and 3 UK's capacity to service the growth in mobile data use.

MBNL managing director Graham Payne said: “Smartphone and mobile laptop data traffic growth in the UK has been unprecedented, and there is every sign it will continue to grow as fast going forward."

Emin Gurdenli, T-Mobile UK technical director, added: "as high-speed mobile broadband becomes increasingly adopted for fast, simple internet access wherever you are, network performance becomes an increasingly important competitive differentiator."

In addition, having a UK network reach of close to 100 per cent could mean the mobile operators are well positioned to help deliver the Digital Britain universal service commitment (USC).

That commitment aims to get a minimum speed of 2Mbit/s download bandwidth to everybody in the UK by 2012. However, the solutions on offer currently mean the last 10 per cent of users, based in rural areas, are not able to access broadband at this speed.

T-Mobile said its 3G network upgrade to high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) was completed earlier this year, which gives a theoretical download speed of 7.2 Mbit/s.

However, that headline speed is unlikely to be achieved in practice due to the user's distance from the nearest mobile base station and the 'cell size' – the number users connecting to the same base station.

T-Mobile is rolling out a faster version of mobile broadband in the US - evolved high speed packet access (HSPA+), giving a theoretical download speed of 21Mbit/s.

An upgrade of its UK network to that specification could see it being able to surpass Digital Britain's USC of a minimum 2Mbit/s download speed.

Whether the two mobile operators would get contracts to participate in the USC will depend on Broadband Delivery UK's (BDUK) chief executive Adrian Kamellard. BDUK is the body responsible for deploying the government’s Universal Service Commitment and Next Generation Fund.

It has two strategy objectives outlined on the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) web site:

1. To drive the USC of 2Mbit/s to every household by 2012, using funds raised by the Digital Switchover Fund.
2. Manage the spend of the £1bn Next Generation Fund to deliver Next Generation Broadband to 90 per cent of the country by 2017.

In January 2009 the Republic of Ireland announced its scheme for national broadband provision, with mobile operator 3 tasked with connecting the last 10 per cent of Ireland’s population to the internet by September 2010.

MBNL was set up in December 2007 to combine T-Mobile and 3 UK's 3G access network, including mobile masts and infrastructure connecting each mobile operator's core backhaul networks.