Orange and Vodafone have joined hands to share network resources. Both of them have been in extensive talks about how they could share resources efficiently for a year now. Orange and Vodafone revealed that the deal to share 2G and 3G mobile masts in the UK would result in customers benefiting in terms of better mobile coverage quality. Now that they have joined hands, their united customer base will benefit from their joint resources. The deal is expected to decrease operational costs for both the companies as the number of mast sites can be lessened roughly by 15 per cent - say 3,000 sites - in the first couple of years itself. This will have positive impact on the environment too. Both the companies said that they intended to continue with their separate networks as of now. This agreement is a result of a recent network joint venture between competitors 3 and T-Mobile.

Orange and Vodafone together have around 27,000 masts all across the country that serve a collective 34 million mobile phone users. Both of them will not share physical infrastructure in that sense but will definitely reduce the number of mast sites by keeping transmitters on the same site. This will save both of them a lot of money on running costs.

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