The European Community is set to put a spanner in the UK's 3G plans claiming that they are anti-competitive. To slash the costs of 3G, BT wants to share equipment with selective competitors and has already signed a deal with Deutsche Telekom.

But EC Competition Commissioner Mario Monti is likely to prove more resistant. He is working on legislation that would regulate the telecoms industry up until 2010, blocking collaborative monopoly power and preventing sharing.

The proposed laws examine companies that join forces to collectively dominate a market, and there is no doubt that site-sharing gives the participants cost advantages over their competitors.

Competition officials seem unwilling to make exceptions for certain sectors. "The notion of dominance, be it single or collective, is not a specific sector notion; it applies to all markets without distinction," said Monti.

Earlier this week, European Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, who oversees technology, seemed to approve equipment sharing when he said he was open to the idea. Oftel has also confirmed that sharing sites was not against licence rules.