Could Vodafone nab 3 UK after T-Orange merger?

With the merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK approved by the European Union, the current UK leaders, O2 and Vodafone, will be mulling their competitive responses. So far, Vodafone has mainly focused on revamping its software brands and its higher-value services, but it could also move to acquire the country's smallest cellco, 3 …

[Anonymous Coward]

WIlll be bad news

Already we are suffering high rates and a cartel. This would make it worse. Whats wrong with 3 being independent? They indeed offer good value contracts.

With Voda, all bets are off! sigh.....

Lemme drown my sorrows on a friday evening.

[Stuart 22]

Split 'em off

I guess a couple of ant-trust type moves down the line might have us end up with two network operators servicing a load of virtual mobile operators. In other words the Voda/Orange/O2 brands become just big MVNOs. Seems the only sensible way of lowering cost of infrastructure whilst maintaining at least a facade of competition and affordable entry for new players.

Will Ofcomm have the guts to start by imposing some 'chinese walls' between the customer facing divisions and the network divisions a la BT 20 years ago? Or do have to wait for Brussels to step in to protect the UK mobile customer again?

[Graeme Hill]

Split em off......

The only reason the government split BT in two, and had the regulatory power to do so was because they were a (previously) state owned monopoly. This meant that as the infrastructure was put in place by the taxpayer, BT were gaining a huge advantage as they owned all the infrastructure in place, and pretty much controlled every call being made. The mobile networks (O2, Orange and Vodafone) all built their networks using investments from business and the public, and have never been a "monopoly", so splitting them in two would be a kick in the teeth for the staff who would invariably lose their jobs, and also for the investors in the companies who stayed as investors when OFCOM nearly bankrupted them with the 3G licence sales

[Anonymous Coward]

yay

Because nom nom business practises worked so well with the banks..

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad Idea

Three have driven down prices, and if you're don't mind a handset being forced to basically use their network when available (resulting in worse battery life) then people still choose them. Entire families can go for some packages, and total monthly cost is not far off half the cost of the 2g+3g networks.

The reason I haven't bothered with them is the bad reputation they gained when they were first available, and the fact the three broadband dongle I was given is no longer allowed to roam on 2G, only use three's 3g network, so on a UK North to South train it is next to useless and only works sporadically for 10 seconds at a time; the software does not handle this and generally siezes up.

However I'm sure it will get better as we're forced through marketing onto 3.5g and 4g onwards, so allowing three to be swalloed up by any competitor would be a bad idea in my opinion. Didn't some or all of the original owners of three sell part or all of the company off anyway?

[UkForest]

Love El Reg But...

Head-quartered North of London?!? So that'll be virtually anywhere in the UK then!

[Mike K]

More open spectrum then?

The proposed auctions (perhaps non-auctions) seem a good opportunity to split infrastructure from services and use the opportunity to force the full separation of Openreach with a tease of some spectrum so we can crack on with creating a merged data transport fabric.

[bluesxman]

Vodathrone?

As a 3 year subscriber to Three (yeah yeah, I know -- see "1" below) I can safely say two things:

1. They are dirt cheap and offer decent packages

2. You get what you pay for -- their customer service can be shockingly poor and the less I have to deal with them the better

"1" makes "2" much more tolerable.

A merge with Vodafone might improve "2", but I seriously doubt it'll do "1" any favours at all.