back to article T-Orange won't share the airwaves

T-Mobile and Orange won't be handing over any radio spectrum when they merge, despite the fact that T-Orange will own almost half the available airways. The combined force will have licences to operate in 170MHz of radio spectrum, compared to Vodafone's holding of 76MHz and Orange's 66MHz, but the operating officers of both …

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  1. Bob H
    FAIL

    Orange 3G coverage

    I just wish Orange would stop advertising how great their 3G coverage is, I can't walk from one side of my office to the other without loosing signal, or one side of my house to the other, or even make a call inside my house.

    I was on the 6th floor of an office in London, by the window, and found I couldn't keep connected for more than 5min before it dropped and the speed was terrible.

  2. David Simpson 1
    WTF?

    hmmmm

    You do have to feel for them a bit, the government squeezed them both dry when they auctioned off the bandwidth now Offcom expects them to "give" it back ?!

  3. Hainesy

    Better Coverage?

    Will this mean that as an Orange customer I'll benefit from better coverage from T-Mobile basestations once they are merged? I used to have a company T-Mobile phone and it had better signal in places where my Orange phone didn't. Was thinking of jumping ship to Vodafone but might be worth staying put if this is the case?

  4. Ryan 7

    Easy!

    Just force T-Orange to sell some spectrum to 3 for a fair price set by an un-biased third party.

    The only thing stopping me fron jumping from O2 to 3 is that O2 have the most consistent signal...

  5. Alex King
    Thumb Up

    No need to worry...

    Some rogue T-Mobile employee will probably sell the spectrum off to the highest bidder soon anyway.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Hainesy

    Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the word on the street is that they will be decommissioning about 14000 base stations as a result of the merger so you may not end up any better off.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      decomissioning or moving?

      It makes sense to decommision one or other at colocated sites.

      It'd make more sese to put the freed up kit in places with lousy signal.

  7. Michael C
    Go

    look, its simple

    I'm not in favor of the government taking it, so long as the bandwidth is offered up for bid, and at reasonable prices. due to tower redundancy, a lot of air wave won;t be used anymore. Any towers decomissioned by the merger should return 60-80% of the airwave to the open market where is can be sold. If the government determines the pricing is not fair, they'll simply reclaim it and pay t/orange less than market value, then sell it themselves. Pricing should be fairly easy to determine based on recent air wave trading.

    They can't horde it unless they can show on paper the legitimate use and need of it within a 2 year period from now. (network expansion/migration to a new paralel technology after which they'll part with the old air waves; rollout of some massive broadband service, etc) some reason to keep it if they fail to sell, with money rolling out of the coffers continually in an actual and measurable effort.

  8. Pandy06269
    Coffee/keyboard

    T-Mobile = bad signal

    I was with T-Mobile on PAYG for 3 months, and I couldn't get a signal at all at home which was kind of a problem. I phoned them up and they said "yeah we know the signal's cr*p in that area; but we're not going to do anything about it because not enough people have complained."

    So I switched to Vodafone - been with them for nearly 5 years, only had 2 places where I haven't had a signal - once was in the London Underground, the other was up north in the middle of nowhere for about 5 minutes until my phone found another transmitter.

    My room-mate has exactly the same problem as I had on T-Mobile - and guess who she's with? Orange. Yep, if they've really got over half the available bandwidth, they're not using it very well.

    Esc - because T-Orange should escape now; they're getting none of my business.

  9. Christopher Rogers
    Megaphone

    couple of points

    @ Bob H - I had an orange phone here in northern ireland about 8 years ago and spent most of my time ROAMING into the the Republic of Ireland (the cost was awful).

    I'm now back with orange after a few years of O2, and i have to say, its a very different story. I've been getting a 3G signal is some rather rural places and even in my house in Belfast's suburbia where O2 seemed to drop, Orange have been great.

    @ David Simpson 1 - I agree. The government made a bollox of dishing out the bandwidth and the firms jumped through hoops to get what they have. They should be allowed to keep it.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @David Simpson 1

    "You do have to feel for them a bit, the government squeezed them both dry when they auctioned off the bandwidth now Offcom expects them to "give" it back ?!"

    David, how do you work out the the government "squeezed them dry"? It was an auction. Nobody forced them to bid what they did.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Orange coverage

    There is currently an issue that seems to be affecting more and more devices on orange in the uk.

    Updates have been applied to parts of their network that are affecting built in 3g devices on some laptops as well as some phones. Users can not connect on 3G at all and sometimes even edge/gprs is problematic but in other areas everything works just fine..

    PS its between some nokia/siemens kit and built in ericsson devices :)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    T-Orange?

    Bloody awful name. Why not Orange-T (pronounced Orange-Tea)? Much more natural sounding, and it'd mean they'd even be able to branch out with a drinks deal with Starbucks etc. Go out for an Orange Tea, then head off to a cinema to see a film on Orange Wednesday with friends you called on your orange-T phone.

    Or have a cute monkey mascot called "Orange-Tang"

    Even if those are pretty daft ideas, it's a far more adaptable name than T-Orange. What can you do with that, apart from drop the T- in a few years?

    Just as long as they don't rename themselves "Green" mobile to be more eco-friendly.

  13. Chris Beach

    Why?

    Why would they 'give' it back? They might consider selling it, at the same kind of markup the government sold it to them.

  14. Jacqui Smith's DVD Collection!
    Stop

    T-Mobile have by far the worst coverage...

    T-Mobile have by far the worst coverage I have ever experienced, I've put up with it for a couple of years because on the rare occasion when it does work it's very good and they are cheap.

    However I've recently got a HTC Hero... I need data damnit! Now they are merging I can't see that they will improve the network any time soon. I was thinking of going back to Vodafone but they have crappy data plans.

    I guess we just need a better system! 3G on 900MHz would be great...

  15. lukewarmdog
    Badgers

    auction

    They paid a massive premium for the spectrum, the government pocketed a lot of cash.

    Give it back as some kind of regulatory sweetner? Somebody seriously thinks they might do that?

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