UK mobile operators may be forced to accept network-switching arrangements

Mobile operators in the UK could be forced to accept network-switching arrangements with their rivals, if legislation – reportedly expected to be introduced this week were to be pushed through Parliament, The Register reported.

A number of reports in the Sunday newspapers said the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport wanted to introduce a "national roaming" plan.

Under the proposal, mobile customers would be able to easily hop on to other networks when the signal from their carrier was poor or non-existent in some areas.

According to The Sunday Times, the planned regulation was being floated, after the country's biggest mobile operators, including O2, Vodafone and EE, rejected the proposed network-sharing idea.

A senior Whitehall official was cited by the newspaper, as saying, the proposed law would be published as part of a public consultation document expected to land this week.

According to the government official, the government was keen on a national roaming plan and had talked to the mobile phone networks that had been told to come up with a plan. The secretary of state for culture Sajid Javid was frustrated that they had failed to do so.

According to the source, operators had been given "numerous opportunities" to come up with a suitable business proposal that would benefit their UK subscribers.

It had been estimated that a fifth of the UK suffered from an unreliable mobile phone signal.

The government would be expected to start a consultation process on the reforms this week.

The development comes after the failure of the 'big four' phone operators - Vodafone, O2, EE and Three - to reach an agreement on improving reception in areas where it was poor.

Most of the areas, had at least a couple of networks of with sufficient coverage for people to receive a signal.

According to Javid, the companies needed to be forced to allow 'roaming' between networks to ensure that everyone could receive a signal regardless of which operator they were with.

Currently, customers having contracts with one network cannot make calls, send text messages or transfer data using another network.

Yet, whenever customers travelled abroad, they were able to use any network their operator had an agreement with.