Supplementary written evidence submitted
by Arqiva
The Committee asked about the number of 3G masts
the four providers currently have and Arqiva agreed to follow
this up in writing:
Question 1: NUMBER
OF MASTS
AND "POINTS
OF PRESENCE"
Sites may contain many transmitters for different
operators and different spectrum. It is important to distinguish
between a mast and 'point of presence' (PoP):
— Mast:
A physical piece of infrastructure, mast or rooftop, which can
support multiple operators and points of presence.
— Point
of Presence: The radiation of an operator's frequency
for a specific technology. Noting that the electronics used to
deliver this may be shared, as in the case of Everything Everywhere
and 3UK, but individual operator frequencies are emitted from
the antenna.
Arqiva believes there are 35,500 masts deployed across
the country, split between those self provided by the MNOs and
those provided by independent third parties:
— MNO
Self Provide = circa 23,300
— Independent
Third Party = circa 12,200
These masts support circa 86,000 2G and 3G points
of presence as shown below:
| Technology | 2G
| 3G |
| PoP | Frequency
| PoP | Frequency
|
| Everything Everywhere | 18,000[55]
| 1800 MHz | 18,0001
| 2.1 GHz |
| O2 | 10,000 | 900 MHz
| 8,500 | 2.1 GHz &
900 MHz
|
| Vodafone | 10,000 | 900 MHz
| 8,500 | 2.1 GHz &
900 MHz
|
| 3UK | N/A | N/A
| 13,000[56]
| 2.1 GHz |
| Total | 38,000 | N/A
| 48,000 | N/A |
Question 2: NUMBER OF
ADDITIONAL MASTS/POINTS
OF PRESENCE
TO DELIVER
99%
Arqiva believes that the current 35,500 masts would be sufficient
to deliver 99% outdoor population coverage when utilising the
800 MHz frequency band.
In other words, this public policy objective of universal coverage
could be achieved without building new physical sites.
However, this would be achieved by the addition of 4G points of
presence to the existing infrastructure deployed in the
UK. To deliver 99% we believe that circa 15,000 points of presence
would be required at 800 MHz.[57]
June 2011
55
This is the proposed situation once the legacy T-Mobile and Orange
networks have been consolidated Back
56
3UK's 13,000 PoP for its own spectrum are delivered via the use
of shared electronics with T-Mobile (Everything Everywhere) Back
57
Assuming a 10 MHz pair of 800 MHz Back
| 
