The recent announcement by Vodafone and Orange that they had agreed to share their cell sites with each other to make cost savings and to increase their separate coverage may possibly be investigated by The Office of Fair Trading (OFT)This in some corners is seen as bad news for both Vodafone and Orange subscribers because it could limit the amount of investment that each of these major networks would be able to grow their 3G coverage.

As the major manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung and Motorola continue to develop new handsets with multi media functions the pressure is on 02, T-Mobile, ’3′ Three (Hutchinson 3G) Orange and Vodafone to increase their 3G coverage throughout the UK.

So far the networks have all concentrated on the major cities, towns and motorway networks. Virgin Mobile have to rely on T-Mobile to continue to grow their 3G coverage in the UK because they use their network.

It would appear that the Office of Fair Trading considers this collaboration as possibly lessening competition in the market place.

The heads of both Vodafone and Orange deny that this relationship would lessen the competition between their two companies.