A condition of the Orange and T-Mobile merger into EE was that it had to open up its 3,000 3G phone mast network for Three to access, reports This is Money.
However, court papers suggest that over the past six years EE has only enabled Three to access and utilise 1,301 phone masts, less than half (43.67%) of the 3,000 sites.
Three claims that the lack of access to the remaining EE masts is not only hampering its efforts to expand its coverage to customers but its estimated losses have run to £127.9 million. It expects further losses of £39 million.
An EE spokesman told This is Money: “We strongly reject the allegations and we will contest them vigorously.”