Everything Everywhere, the joint venture between Orange and T-Mobile, has reportedly appointed Morgan Stanley to handle the sale of some of the spectrum it holds in the 1800MHz frequency band.
The company, created in July 2010 through the merger of the UK businesses of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, hired Morgan Stanley last week to "provide independent professional advice" on the sale of a quarter of its 2G spectrum, the Wall Street Journal quoted a Everything Everywhere spokeswoman as saying.
"One of the conditions of the merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the U.K. was that Everything Everywhere divest a quarter of its 1800MHz spectrum before the next spectrum auction," she said.
The sale is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2012, in coincide with Ofcom's proposed 4G spectrum auction, which is scheduled to take place in the same quarter, the spokeswoman said.
Ofcom's proposed auction of two spectrum bands--800MHz and 2.6 GHz --will provide much-needed capacity as demand for mobile data in western Europe is expected to increase by more than six-fold over the next five years, driven by smartphones and mobile broadband data services such as video streaming and social networking, according to Ofcom.