Optus, Vodafone Decide To Copy Telstra, Hutchison

It was just a few weeks ago when Telstra admitted the not-so-unknown plans to share Hutch's 3G wireless network. Competitor Optus, who had also been talking to Telstra and Hutch about teaming up quickly said they thought Telstra paid twice as much as necessary -- but that still didn't change the basic economics of network sharing. So, Optus turned to the most obvious other partner and has teamed up with Vodafone Australia to share a 3G network -- though, they don't say how much money is going into this, so it's tough to determine how honest they were in trashing how much Telstra paid. Of course, Telstra was buying into Hutchison's already existing network, whereas this deal means the two companies will work together to build a 3G network both can use, so it's not a direct comparison. Still, it does leave Telstra (and Hutch) a bit of a lead if they can actually capitalize on it.

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