In the UK, T-Mobile and Orange To Merge 74
EthanV2 sends in BBC coverage of the merger plans of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK. "T-Mobile and Orange plan to merge their UK businesses, creating a mobile phone giant with 28.4 million customers. If completed, a deal between Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Orange owner France Telecom would see a firm with sales of €9.4 B (£7.0 B, $13.4 B). It would be the UK's largest provider, overtaking Telefonica's O2, with about 37% of the mobile market. ... However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Supposedly the new company would have around 37% of the market, which sounds daft given that there are only 60 million people in the UK. What this doesn't account for is the number of people who have both personal mobiles and mobiles supplied by their employers, eg for on-call purposes.
O2 have around 28% and Vodafone 25%, so there isn't that much in it. The issue the regulators seem to have is that the UK market will go from five major (O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3) players to four, and the merged
Re: (Score:2)
What this doesn't account for is the number of people who have both personal mobiles and mobiles supplied by their employers, eg for on-call purposes
And those who have multiple mobile accounts for other reasons. I have two Orange pay-as-you-go accounts that I use only to get the cheap cinema ticket offers that Orange does. My day-to-day account is Vodafone. Because they give SIMs away, and most of us have old handsets lying around, having multiple accounts like this can't be uncommon.
Re: (Score:2)
I have two Orange pay-as-you-go accounts that I use only to get the cheap cinema ticket offers that Orange does.
Seriously? Have you looked at the cost of an annual pass in your local cinema? You'd probably pay less for unlimited films.
Re: (Score:2)
PAYG accounts are free if you don't use them... so I doubt he'd be able to pay less.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Pay £10 for a PAYG SIM, save £7/trip to the cinema on Orange Wednesdays scheme. Get two tickets a year and you're up already. It'd take a lot more trips than that to win on an annual pass, even if they are available.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Otherwise, paying a flat rate for a phone you never use to save a good bit on cinema tickets sounds like an excellent idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Monopoly? (Score:5, Informative)
Both the EU and UK (Competition Commission and/or Ofcom) regulators will be paying a great deal of attention to the merger, given the high barriers of entry to the market place (i.e. it's not really possible) and the low number of competitors.
Re:Monopoly? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm pretty sure that anything over 25% would legally be a monopoly in the UK (I know technically it's not a monopoly, but in a rare case of foresight the monopoplies and mergers laws took into account that 25%+ is enough to distort a market).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The barrier isn't that high as long as the EU keeps doing what it's been doing. MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) is the new thing, this has already taken off in Denmark for instance, it's fairly cheap to start up and due to regulations you aren't being bled dry by the actual owner of the network. It is however fairly new and quite a few kinks has to be ironed out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The only other major one I know of is TalkTalk, which is owned by Carphone Warehouse, and uses Vodafone's network.
Re: (Score:2)
For those who don't know, Tesco are the biggest retailer in the UK. Something like 1 in every 6 pounds is spent at Tesco.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
...given the high barriers of entry to the market place (i.e. it's not really possible) and the low number of competitors.
Didn't 3 prove over the last 5 years that entry to the market-place is perfectly possible? And, as The Register [theregister.co.uk] notes:
The UK mobile industry is one of the most competitive in the world
So I don't imagine anyone's going to stop this...
Re:Monopoly? (Score:4, Informative)
There aren't going to be any more spectrum auctions for a while. Three got in by bidding in the last auction, and they aren't exactly that new to the market. Hutchison Wampoa, the Chinese company that owns Three was the original owner of Orange.
Re:Monopoly? (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the summary, it is about 37% of the market. There are more cellphones than people in the UK. Pretty much everyone has a cellphone, and a lot of people have more than one - eg work cellphone and personal cellphone.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have read that such a deal would probably result in a total monopoly on the back end for Ericsson.
Thus the networks (Vodafone, O2, Orange-Mobile and Three) could have their operating costs pushed up, which would be passed on to the consumer.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:1)
> In a couple of 60 million people
wow , that is a seriously open relationship
Mergers (Score:3, Insightful)
However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal.
Is there ever any news of mergers that hit Slashdot that aren't probed by the EU?
Re:Mergers (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there ever any news of mergers that hit Slashdot that aren't probed by the EU?
I don't recall the EU probing Slashdot's merger with Sourceforge ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Is there ever any news of mergers that hit Slashdot that aren't probed by the EU?
It's the whole idea of competition regulation departments in the government to probe mergers of large companies. It would be news if they didn't probe a merger.
Re:Mergers (Score:4, Informative)
However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal.
Is there ever any news of mergers that hit Slashdot that aren't probed by the EU?
It tends not to be news if two tiny companies merge to form another small company; that happens all the time without regulators getting involved, it's just not important enough to hit the/. front page.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Does the Enterprise ever go on patrol along the neutral zone and nothing happens?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. Nothing of interest happened when the Enterprise-E was there in First Contact.
Re: (Score:1)
in soviet russia monopolies commission probes eu !
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Seconded. I moved from Orange to T-Mobile, despite the fact I was largely happy with the Orange service, to get the G1. Despite the fact I find corporate monopolies to be scary, this is probably going to work out well for me as a customer; Orange have a better network IMHO than T-Mobile.
Re: (Score:2)
I wanted to do this, but T-mobile coverage where I live is so abysmal it wasn't really an option. But I think all the carriers have them now.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Seconded. I moved from Orange to T-Mobile, despite the fact I was largely happy with the Orange service, to get the G1.
I moved from Orange to Three when I got my HTC Dream because Orange's data price structure is totally uncompetitive with pretty much any of the other MNOs....
Re: (Score:2)
So.... (Score:1)
I guess Darth Vader [youtube.com] finally capitulated and joined the Orange Side?
Re: (Score:2)
In the UK... (Score:5, Funny)
In the UK, people annoyed by retardedly phrased Slashdot headlines.
Re:In the UK... (Score:4, Funny)
In the UK, at least one person annoyed by the non-word "retardedly".
Re: (Score:1)
the dollar isn't really relevant to a story here unless it's maybe about the exchange rate or some such.
so unless you are personally willing to go through ALL the stories here on slashdot and convert ALL the dollar values to GBP and Euros then there's ALWAYS www.xe.com to help
you are welcome
Re: (Score:2)
Speaks like Yoda, /. editors do to sound wiser.
Re: (Score:2)
Not spam but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Since somebody is clearly removing all the posts that are actual spam, couldn't they remove ones like this while they're about it?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since somebody is clearly removing all the posts that are actual spam, couldn't they remove ones like this while they're about it?
Like you say, it's not spam, but it *is* similar. People who respond to spam beget more spam, and people who respond to flamebait / troll posts beget more of those posts.
Basically, it's not worth your time to respond, as that is exactly what these folks are looking for.
Truly wonderful news (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
I hope your kid catches the swine flu.
You really don't get this, do you? (Score:2)
And who do you want in court? Elderly lawyers who don't understand this newfangled mobile phone
German Tmobile and "France" Tcom? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
T-mobile also, although the market seems to resist the efforts of German high command at rebranding, so it still functions under the name "Era" (plus fully dependant prepaid network "Heyah")
Re:German Tmobile and "France" Tcom? (Score:4, Interesting)
and T-Mobile owns 93% of Era which is the third largest operator in Poland.
Re: (Score:2)
3 is not an MVNO. They may have recently set up a network sharing agreement with T-Mobile, but that doesn't make them a virtual network. The basic idea is that all existing T-Mobile 3G towers now transmit both T-Mobile and 3 identifiers, and same goes for the existing 3 ones.
However, their network is a bit patchy, but their data plans aren't too bad - but watch their out-of-bundle rates of 10p/MB on contract or £1/MB on PAYG.
Compare to Orange's "mobile broadband" offering where their bundles might not
Re: (Score:1)
Check Ofcom. 3 have the best 3G coverage in the UK.
Couldn't care less about the monopoly aspect... (Score:1)