The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) have given the go-ahead to Vodafone and O2 to merge elements of their networks in order to increase the speed of 4G services rollout in the UK.

The new joint venture will be called CTI Ltd and will see the consolidation of UK network infrastructure while remaining individually competitive.

CTI will have access to an infrastructure containing as many as 18,500 masts which will allow for greater coverage, Ronan Dunne, CEO Telefónica UK, said: “One physical grid, running independent networks, will mean broader coverage and, crucially, investment in innovation and better competition for the customer”.