The Guardian is reporting that UK former-monopoly BT has been having discussions with T-Mobile and 3 about launching a mobile-phone network.

The discussions are described as "at an early stage", but apparently involve both existing mobile operators working with BT to launch a mobile network, something BT hasn't owned since spinning off Cellnet back in 2001. Cellnet later rebranded as O2, and got bought by Telefonica two years ago.

There isn't much in the way of spectrum available for a new 3G network, so anything BT launches will have to piggyback on spectrum owned by other operators - which makes sense as even BT wouldn't want to be rolling out a new national transmitter network in this economic climate.

So even if BT does launch a mobile network it will be little more than an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), which the telco already tried with Vodafone and the ill-fated "Fusion" product. So while investors might like the idea of BT having its own mobile network, there really isn’t much of an opportunity - unless BT decides to do something completely mad, like buying 3. ®

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