A big shake up could be on its way in the UK mobile market. It has been announced in a few national newspapers that O2 and Vodafone are considering the possibility of sharing a network, rather than running off the two separate networks they use at the moment.

The news comes on the back of the government’s plan to provide the whole country with access to broadband by 2012. As a large area of the country cannot get broadband through copper wires, the Digital Britain report states that mobile broadband will play a large role in fulfilling this aim.

If the plan goes ahead as expected, not only will a greater level of mobile broadband be available in rural areas of the UK, but the number of base stations needed will be significantly reduced from the current number of 51,000.

But this move could have further repercussions, because if it goes ahead then it is thought that Orange is likely to join the network already shared by T-mobile and 3. If this happens then the UK will be left with just two networks being shared by the five biggest companies.

Although some have stated that this is a good thing for consumers because it will reduce costs for the companies and therefore for the consumers, there has also been concern voiced in terms of the reduced competition that could arise as a result, which could be a negative impact for the industry.

No announcement has been officially made as yet, but it is widely expected that it could come some time in the next few weeks.