EU blocks O2/Three merger

The EU Commission has today blocked the proposed acquisition of O2 by Three's owner Hutchison under the EU Merger Regulation. The commission said it had strong concerns that UK mobile customers would have had less choice and paid higher prices as a result of the takeover, and that the deal would have harmed innovation in the …

[Humpty McNumpty]

So presumably, if they had got there first 3/O2 would have been just fine and Orange/Tmobile->BT would have been blocked.

To my mind EE should never have been allowed, that made something altogether too big, by contrast I have real issues with BT (or maybe Openreach splitting off cleanly and owning a cell network with BT and others being an MVNO on top of that) owning a Cell network, it makes sense in terms of product offerings and many consumers like getting everything in one place.

However 3 networks on one piddly island that loves to use mobiles should not have a real problem being competitive. If it proves to be, I guess we could just sell some of their spectrum to a new entrant.

[Patrician]

The EE -> BT merger/buyout didn't reduce the number of mobile providers operating in the UK market; there is still four. The O2/Three one would have, that is the difference.

[Big_Ted]

Except BT now control the network and a large portion of the backbone EE uses.

Orange and T-Mobile merger did reduce them and did nothing to benefit the customers, look at the ridiculous prices they wanted at the start for small amounts of 4G data.....

[Test Man]

And with O2 and Three, the combined company would have control of the backbone that BOTH company uses.

BT and EE aren't comparable - BT didn't even have a consumer mobile presence for a start.