UK watchdog hints Voda-Three merger will likely pass Britain's competition regulator says it is minded to approve the merger of telcos Vodafone and Three UK, if the pair commit to network upgrades and short-term customer safeguards against higher bills. "We believe this deal has the potential to be pro-competitive for the UK mobile sector if our concerns are addressed," said …
...they deliver roaming-capable (i.e. accessible to O2 and EE customers and their MVNOs) proper usable 5G coverage to every single metre of every single railway line and motorway in the country (and yes, that includes tunnels).
Then at least as a country we'll have something useful out of them before we all inevitably get shafted by price rises.
Well, that's my hope if this deal goes through. I use 3 for my personal phone and Vodafone for the work device. I can usually get some signal on one or the other, especially on the train, but never both at the same time.
Of course what we'll actually get is them both being equally shit at the same time.
If you want that, you remove their ability to deploy their own masts entirely and make them contribute to a centralised cooperative that manages the masts which they have to fund.
Nationalise the infrastructure, privatise the commercials running on top.
There's no reason for any of these companies to be anything but an MVNO with infrastructure for all being funded by all.
Rather than, say, erect one pole for Three, another for BT, another for EE, etc. in the same locations and then having to have them all enter into sharing agreements and all being unwilling to fund anything further because they're just paying for access to their rival's masts and it's up to the rival to bother to upgrade them.
"If you want that, you remove their ability to deploy their own masts entirely and make them contribute to a centralised cooperative that manages the masts which they have to fund."
You appear unaware that Vodafone & O2 have an existing mast-sharing arrangement in place (via a jointly-owned company) for some years and likewise EE & Three have an existing mast-sharing arrangement in place (via a jointly owned company) for some years as well. Obviously as part of a Vodafone / Three merger going through both Vodafone and Three will almost certainly extract themselves from their existing mast-sharing arrangements with O2 and EE.
"unwilling to fund anything further because they're just paying for access to their rival's masts and it's up to the rival to bother to upgrade them."
How exactly do you upgrade a *mast* rather than the equipment mounted on or connected to, a mast? Do you upgrade it by making it taller?
Under the current mast-sharing arrangements the pairs of OpCos involved have their own antennas mounted on each mast and their own equipment etc sited in their own cabinets adjacent to the masts, it is only the mast that is shared.
A mast isn't just a stick.
There's power and data run to it, and backup power*.
If the mast owner doesn't want to upgrade the data connection to the mast, then nobody gets more bandwidth for their customers.
* In theory. In practice it's a single AAA cell that corroded away years ago.
"If the mast owner doesn't want to upgrade the data connection to the mast, then nobody gets more bandwidth for their customers."
There is no "data connection" to the mast, there are data connections to *each* of the mobile opcos equipment cabinets near the base of the mast.
Also for the vast majority of mast sites in the UK the mast owner is a company jointly owned by the pair of mobile opcos using that mast and so "the mast owner doesn't want to upgrade the data connection" isn't going to happen.
and the key words "short-term customer safeguards against higher bills." to us we would like maybe a couple of years, to V3 that's more likely 6 months or to the next round of price rises and then expect some big jumps from all the providers in a co-ordinated monopolistic cartel round of increases, support by their pet regulator.
I'm currently in a country with a much smaller population than the UK where there are three spectrum holders. That should be plenty to ensure a competitive market, but in practice, there's almost no competition at all: the prices are almost indistinguishable and the operators get away with ancient practices such as charging a "line rental" for PAYG mobile phones in the event you don't make calls. The customer service is universally dreadful - to the extent that they will even refuse to cancel a service that's out of contract because of their retention targets.
The problem is not the number of operators, per se, but the incentives to compete. Reducing "churn" here (long contracts, complex bundles and outright refusal to cancel) is seen to be more important than competition (which would merely increase churn). The UK market is (somewhat) more competitive precisely because there are smaller operators that have to fight harder for revenue. As soon as there are three incumbents of roughly equal market dominance they'll find it's more to their advantage to hold their existing customers hostage than have an awkard minority shopping around.
It seems I'm literally a couple of days out of date and a new kid has just arrived on the block and has acquired spectrum (not just an MVNO), as well as offering fibre broadband. This is partly due to regulatory action against an incumbent.
Mobile costs seem to be about a third of their nearest present competitor and fibre broadband at 1Gb/s is about a quarter of the cost of the nearest competitor with a minimum contract of months rather than years.
Whether it works out in the long run remains to be seen - but it does illustrate that you need new entrants to the market to spur competition, not a consolidation of existing ones.
The two telcos issued a report last month claiming their current networks were "outdated" due to lack of investment...
Err - OK. I am intrigued. Just where did the money get 'invested' then? What was so important that investments in the respective networks had to be used elsewhere? It smells of mismanagement to me...
“ The two telcos issued a report last month claiming their current networks were "outdated" due to lack of investment”
Perhaps the CMA needs to talk to OFCOM, as the above inflation annual price increases were supposed to be to fund network investment. So it would seem monies have been diverted…
Between microshit/Activision; broadcom/vmware; not vodafone/3...add to that the willingness to sell ARM. None of this is our was good for consumers. Every merger has been bad for prices, innovation & customer service.
Just more pointless shit that will see prices rise across the board & the shite, almost unusable mobile networks we have in this country get even worse
I recently moved from Three to Vodafone, because I was sick of Three's patchy coverage.
Vodafone was no better. So I cancelled in my cooling off period.
I tried an EE PAYG SIM and had good coverage where I needed it. Then I set up an account with 1p mobile who are a MVNO using EE's network. My coverage is now brilliant.
Remember, EE is a merger of two networks, Orange and T-Mobile. So, by merging, they created an actually usable network. Perhaps Three and Vodafone can do the same.
As for costs, MVNOs are often going to give a better deal for most people, if you can shop around in a savvy way and know exactly what you need and what frills you can do without (including for example bi-yearly phone updates on payment plans).
It used to be the case that some networks were good in some areas, and others were better in other areas, so your choice was usually whichever network best served your home.
These days, I've found they all tend to share masts, so they're equally good/shit in a particular area. At least, in all the areas I've bothered checking.
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