Vodafone has claimed that the UK’s 5G roll out has so far disproportionately favored urban over rural users, in a report that seems designed to overcome objections to its proposed merger with Hutchson’s Three. That merger would reduce the country from four to three major MNOs, the other two being BT’s EE and Virgin Media O2 (VMO2). The report quite blatantly states that the planned merger, soon to be investigated by the UK’s Competition and Mergers Authority (CMA), would lead to “rolling out 5G to every school in the country by 2030,” adding that its approval is vital for the future of UK connectivity. The argument is that the economies of scale would enable greater investment in, and faster deployment…