I'm with three, and they've already put their prices up, I was hopeful for some extra coverage out of the deal.
And wouldn't they have operated separately anyway?
But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile
Not forgetting though that O2 (Telefonica) bought the failing BT Mobile many years ago and their infrastructure
Go figure
Ferral
But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile
Not forgetting though that O2 (Telefonica) bought the failing BT Mobile many years ago and their infrastructure
Go figure
To be fair, BT was only an MVNO and piggybacked off Vodafone and O2. Admittedly, Orange and T-Mobile took us down to 4 providers but it seems that the limit has been set at 4 for now.
I would expect Liberty (i.e. Virgin Media) to buy O2 now, but we'll see. Or perhaps Sky will get involved.
Ferral
But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile
Not to mention it's perfectly all right to have openreach and bt as one company stifling any real competition in the landline/broadband market…
But on a side note…. why exactly do the EU commission need to block a solely UK matter from going ahead. The UK watchdog had to ask the EU to do this…why, can't our own watchdog do it?
3 is owned by Hutchinson based in Hong Kong in other words China.. so I'm wondering if EU protectionism might have played a part, though not necessarily in a bad way.
Pretty disappointed with that decision. I myself use Three's PAYG and its remarkably cheap, but while the phone coverage is good, its not on O2's level. I honestly would've been fine with a minor price markup in return for the better coverage, Three is already significantly cheaper than anyone else offering PAYG. I can't speak for contract users ofcourse as I don't call people enough for it to be good value for me.
If anything surely Three's prices are forcing other providers to be more competitive on the PAYG market, so surely providing them with stronger coverage would further help in the matter. Theres the fear of it potentially becoming a monopoly if it went too far ofcourse, if Three was able to offer the best coverage (though O2 is still actually behind EE I believe) at a cheaper price, but frankly I think giving EE and Vodafone this level of competition would have been beneficial.
But whatever, there was always a high chance that some sort of regulatory body was going to get involved in such a substantial merger, but I think if any deserved to be passed it was this one.
Ferral
But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile
That pretty much sums up my feelings too, especially as I would have thought that the formation of EE was a far bigger reduction of consumer choice than the Three merger would have been. I can only assume that the change of personnel in the Commission in the meantime means that they're looking harder now - the alternative of course being some dubious behind-the-scenes manoeuvring.
Personally I would have liked to see the merger, only from the point of view of giving EE some more effective competition in 4G.
Good news, just a shame they didn't block the EE/T-Mob merger :(
shaithis
Good news, just a shame they didn't block the EE/T-Mob merger :(
That.
And quite a few other mergers too, not least the dramatic reduction in competition in banking. In my opinion, when very large businesses merge into super-corporations, it is utterly inevitable that sooner or later, one way or another, Joe Consumer gets right royally f….. erm, shafted.
It's the inconsistency that is annoying me.
They may argue that 3 would jack the prices up (probably correct) but EE did just that! Have you actually seen the prices of any of their contracts with a decent data allowance?!?!
Have they just set an random number as the minimum number of providers? There is no genuine reasoning as why one went through and the other didn't.
I'm pretty sure we can all agree that 3's weakness has always been coverage and internal reception and this merger would have provider wave bands that helped fixs those flaws and would open up the 3 benefits (feel at home, cheap 4g, 321 PAYG) to the people who previously only had a choice between O2 (and maybe vodafone) due to signal issues.
Blah. How annoying.
Jowsey
It's the inconsistency that is annoying me.
They may argue that 3 would jack the prices up (probably correct) but EE did just that! Have you actually seen the prices of any of their contracts with a decent data allowance?!?!
Have they just set an random number as the minimum number of providers? There is no genuine reasoning as why one went through and the other didn't.
I'm pretty sure we can all agree that 3's weakness has always been coverage and internal reception and this merger would have provider wave bands that helped fixs those flaws and would open up the 3 benefits (feel at home, cheap 4g, 321 PAYG) to the people who previously only had a choice between O2 (and maybe vodafone) due to signal issues.
Blah. How annoying.
Ye this is what bothers me. Three's prices are great, just their reception is a little lacking. It's plenty usable, just a little patchy especially indoors. Having Three with O2's reception would be great, even if they had to jack up the price a little bit as a result. It may well be less competition in the market, but its stronger competition, which personally I think matters more.
If Hutchison (3) were going to enter a wholesale agreement with Liberty (Virgin) had the merger gone through, perhaps the two could enter into a partnership to share spectrum and infrastructure costs should Liberty purchase O2's assets.
The supposed competition is doing little to control prices. This decision is unlikely to aid consumers from a pricing perspective, but will hurt them when it comes to coverage.
Ferral
But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile
Not forgetting though that O2 (Telefonica) bought the failing BT Mobile many years ago and their infrastructure
Go figure
No way the EU is going to make German and French companies unhappy but a Hong Kong one? who cares. Still expect O2 to be sold to someone soon enough.
Good news, and a good decision by the commission.
The merger of Orange/T-Mobile was fine imo - at the time we had 5 operators (Orange, Voda, O2, Three, T-Mobile), and T-Mobile were a relatively minor player in the UK who had been losing market share for years. So dropping down to 4, all of similar clout (albeit with different market focuses) wasn't really an issue. It proved positive for consumers too, and EE has worked out really well as a network provider.
Merging O2 and Three would have been a step too far in my opinion. It would have taken us down to 3 operators which would really be pushing it. Very happy they have stopped this, and hopefully it will help to continue the price wars we've seen over recent years. My mobile bills have dropped hugely over the past 8 years and by keeping competition alive, hopefully they will continue to do so (at least in terms of value for money).
As to why the UK competition authorities didn't step in first, well thats a whole different question. I'm not really sure and tbh I don't really care :)
LSG501
Not to mention it's perfectly all right to have openreach and bt as one company stifling any real competition in the landline/broadband market…
They are separate companies with their own structure, although ultimately owned by the BT group. This was set as a ruling by the regulator at the time.
The BT group is a public company, owned by the shareholders, and the shares are traded on the London stock exchange, enabling anybody to own a part of the company and share in its profits.
Many investors are institutions, investing money on behalf of its participants. Some of those are pension providers, so if you have any investment savings, or a private pension provision, you may be a shareholder in BT.
peterb
They are separate companies with their own structure, although ultimately owned by the BT group. This was set as a ruling by the regulator at the time.
I'm not on about how it's owned we all know that it falls under one big umbrella brand but when the EU commission is using lack of competition as the primary reason for not allowing the merger of three and o2 then you do have to wonder why BT and Openreach haven't been made to be run as separate companies because it allows BT and unfair advantage over every other ‘telephone/broadband’ company out there.
The BT group is a public company, owned by the shareholders, and the shares are traded on the London stock exchange, enabling anybody to own a part of the company and share in its profits.
Many investors are institutions, investing money on behalf of its participants. Some of those are pension providers, so if you have any investment savings, or a private pension provision, you may be a shareholder in BT.
My issue isn't over their profits although I do begrudge the amount they get from what is essentially a monopoly where were forced to pay a ‘telephone’ line rental which seems to increase each quarter even if we only use the ‘phone’ line for broadband. This is also paid to them even if we go with a reseller because the BT group owns the last (1/4) mile of every line and because of this there is basically no difference in the line rentals and the only differentiation is down to the packages on offer putting the smaller often better value companies at a disadvantage because they don't have the guaranteed line rental income that BT has even if the line isn't with BT.
The Uk is one of the worse network suppliers in the EU… its also worst for Broadband speeds…
Bulgaria has better network coverage and better broadband speeds than the uk…
LSG501
I'm not on about how it's owned we all know that it falls under one big umbrella brand but when the EU commission is using lack of competition as the primary reason for not allowing the merger of three and o2 then you do have to wonder why BT and Openreach haven't been made to be run as separate companies because it allows BT and unfair advantage over every other ‘telephone/broadband’ company out there.
My issue isn't over their profits although I do begrudge the amount they get from what is essentially a monopoly where were forced to pay a ‘telephone’ line rental which seems to increase each quarter even if we only use the ‘phone’ line for broadband. This is also paid to them even if we go with a reseller because the BT group owns the last (1/4) mile of every line and because of this there is basically no difference in the line rentals and the only differentiation is down to the packages on offer putting the smaller often better value companies at a disadvantage because they don't have the guaranteed line rental income that BT has even if the line isn't with BT.
BT retail (who provides the service to the end user) pays exactly the same to Open reach as any third party reseller. That was one of the reasons Openreach was set up to own the infrastructure and sell wholesale services to any reseller - including BT retail.
The cost of maintaining the last mile is exactly the same whether it is used for speech or data - in fact because data transmission is more demanding, the line and equipment has to be maintained to a higher specification. The rental is for line rental, the calling plans and data plans are extra, although I agree that it should be possible to rent a data only plan. The counter argument is that the telephony is provided as an inclusive service.
Many of the smaller companies also use the BT fibre infrastructure, so they pay that element as well. They can install there own equipment at an exchange and provide there own infrastructure, but that also needs maintaining, so in many cases it will be more cost effective for the smaller companies to lease capacity from Openreach.
I thought this was a done deal? Not disappointed in the slightest though
peterb
BT retail (who provides the service to the end user) pays exactly the same to Open reach as any third party reseller. That was one of the reasons Openreach was set up to own the infrastructure and sell wholesale services to any reseller - including BT retail.
It's not the same though as it's basically BT group paying BT group so it never actually loses any money where as the resellers pay BT group. It's like having 2 tills in one shop and transferring cash from one till to the other till while still taking money from customers.
The EU denied this in the UK yet let Three takeover O2 in Ireland AND allow some more dubious and dodgy mobile dealings go through in Ireland previously, some of which are still subject to government and criminal inquiries, where the main benefactor of one such deal sold up soon after for hefty profits and now controls most of the mobile networks in the Caribbean and Latin America.
I reckon this is more of an attempt by the EU to suggest they are there to protect average citizens and the UK should not go ahead with a Brexit, because you'll miss this kind of consumer protection.
Uh huh…
LSG501
It's not the same though as it's basically BT group paying BT group so it never actually loses any money where as the resellers pay BT group. It's like having 2 tills in one shop and transferring cash from one till to the other till while still taking money from customers.
Not quite the same, because they are separate companies, that file separate accounts, and the cash is exchanged for al service. In this case Open reach provides a wholesale service to BT retail.
It's a bit like the director of a company who controls his own bank account and the company bank account. He can't transfer money from one to the other without accounting for it.
LSG501
It's not the same though as it's basically BT group paying BT group so it never actually loses any money where as the resellers pay BT group. It's like having 2 tills in one shop and transferring cash from one till to the other till while still taking money from customers.
It really isn't.
As far as Openreach is concerned, it doesn't matter whether they are paid by BT or an external party - they get the same outcome.
As far as BT Retail is concerned, they have to pay another party to provide the infrastructure - they're not getting it for free.
Yes, they are part of the same overall group, but that doesn't mean it's one single pot of money as you're implying. If OpenReach was carved out, everyone would still be in exactly the same situation that you describe.
Whilst there are issues around BT Retail and OpenReach being within the same company (the allocation of costs for the EE buyout to OpenReach is one that occurs to me), as far as I can tell what you're talking about definitely isn't one.