BT jittery about Cellnex snapping up UK mobile tower assets

BT has spelled out its opposition to the proposed takeover of Hutchison’s mobile phone masts and towers in the UK by Spanish towerco Cellnex following the publication of legal documents yesterday. BT – which owns mobile outfit EE – backs the Competition and Merger’s Authority (CMA) investigation into the deal, insisting that …

[Anonymous Coward]

Foreign Businesses Say ...

"More fire-sale cheap UK infrastructure? Yes please! Om nom nom nom."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Foreign Businesses Say ...

And more control to the chinese government, their world domination via the backdoor.

[Yet Another Hierachial Anonynmous Coward]

A bit rich for BT....

It's a bit rich for BT to say "that it considers the deal would "materially enlarge the already significant share of the Relevant Market held by Cellnex" and would "remove any realistic scope for Cellnex’s smaller competitors to achieve critical scale in the short-to medium-term" considering that BT normally does everything it can to quash competition at every opportunity.

[babydave]

So - the company (BT) who has been hampering the upgrade of the UK internet infrastructure by sweating the copper assets that were handed to it many years ago is complaining that another provider owning these assets would become a monopoly provider? I call pot meets kettle.

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly can't think of a company better suited than BT for spotting opportunities for less competition and higher prices.

[Gordon 10]

Fuscking Hypocrites

If the issue concerns them so much why dont they offer to buy back the masts they flogged off to Arquiva in the first place?

You dont get to sell an asset for a quick buck then act all outraged when someone else does the same or tries to consolidate the market. This was an obvious risk and they are due the consequences shoved where the sun dont shine. They dont like it up 'em.

(An aside how many times have they flogged off their mobile telco's only to buy another at 10x the price). Greedy inconsistent cnuts.