Hectare for green and pleasant hectare, mobile phone towers are a very profitable crop. That is why farmers could be the only people excited about the prospect of more metal masts in the meadows. By contrast, many mobile phone operators are embracing agreements that combine networks, share infrastructure and reduce the number of towers dotted across the countryside.

On Tuesday, Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and Hutchison Whampoa’s 3 UK agreed to combine third-generation mobile networks in the UK. The deal – described, hideously, as a “win-win in anyone’s language” – invites scepticism. Six years ago, T-Mobile and BT Cellnet (which later became O2) said they were blazing a trail with an agreement to share 3G network construction. It came to nothing. O2, now part of Telefónica, argues that the risk of disruption to customers outweighs the benefits of sharing. Meanwhile, it has gone a little quiet over at Vodafone and Orange (part of France Telecom) since their February fanfare about plans to combine 3G and, where possible, 2G networks in the UK.