Ofcom sees healthy mobile competition

LONDON (Reuters) - The country's telecoms watchdog Ofcom does not plan a wider formal review of the mobile telecoms sector, which it considers healthily competitive, following a second phase of a market consultation that will end in autumn.

Ofcom said on Wednesday it would continue to monitor and safeguard competition between mobile networks, and would work with the government to address spots of poor or no reception, particularly in rural areas.

"The UK has the most competitive mobile industry in Europe with five mobile network operators," it said in a statement.

It added that mobile phone subscriptions for Britain's 60 million population now stood at over 76 million, with about 85 percent of the adult population having a mobile.

Most analysts agree that Britain's mobile operators -- O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3 -- are struggling in a too-crowded market and would benefit from consolidation.

Deutsche Telekom is considering selling T-Mobile UK, but any acquirer runs the risk of overpaying and watching the benefits being shared among its rivals.

One hotly contested growth area is consumers accessing the Internet on their computers via dongle or 3G datacard. Ofcom said on Wednesday there were over 2 million new mobile broadband connections between February 2008 and February 2009.

Ofcom said data service revenues had risen to 6 percent per mobile connection in 2008 from 1 percent in 2003.

It added that SIM-only contract sales, where consumers typically sign up for short terms of one month, accounted for one fifth of all contract sales in 2008, with 1.2 million such contracts being signed.

Ofcom also published for the first time a series of maps showing coverage across Britain by mobile networks using third-generation technology (www.ofcom.org.uk).

The maps were prepared in January 2009 and used to establish mobile operators' compliance with their 3G licence obligations.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan)