VodafoneThree's a crowd – now comes the hard bit Network engineers can take solace from the completed merger of Three and Vodafone announced today, as the difficult technical work now starts to unify their separate networks over the next several years. The union of the two mobile operators, imaginatively named VodafoneThree, was given the go-ahead by UK regulator the …
I'm guessing you mean "Three" (née "3") rather than "Vodafone"?
I'd already been about to say that I suspected they'd do the usual thing that happens with double-barreled corporate merger names like that, i.e. ditching one of the two halves a year or two down the line and reverting to the original name of the other company, i.e. "Vodafone". (Then again, this isn't a merger of the parent companies themselves, just their UK networks).
But now that I think about it, I'm not sure that they wouldn't keep the "Three" bit instead due to better recognition. Even though I checked and was surprised to find they still have a larger market share than Three (20% versus 15%) you just never seem to hear or see the "Vodafone" name these days.
It feels like one of those brands that were important during the 90s- and you're familiar with it because of that- but where part of your brain wants to file it in the "big in their day but got bought out and disappeared 15-to-20 years ago" category like Cellnet.
On the other hand, not sure how the ownership of the Vodafone and Three brands would affect that decision. Ditto the fact that apparently Vodafone (the parent company) will own 51% of the merged network and Three 49%.
Regardless, I can't see them using VodafoneThree as a retail brand. I suspect they'll continue using both separately for at least some time, possibly ditching one later.
Meant to also say that the name "3"/"Three" having been chosen twenty years back to draw attention to the fact they were a 3G network might count against them now that it's a dated anachronism.
Then again, maybe nowadays it's one of those names that's so well-established that people forget (and don't think about) its origins, and that really doesn't matter anyway.
Looks like the 3G switch off is a bit of a mess.
I was in a car travelling up the A1 between Newcastle and Alnwick over the weekend. At one point my phone showed the data service as "G". It took me a while to remember that was "GPRS" - I thought it was bad in other places where it dropped to "Edge" / "E".
But this isn't "down south", so I guess we are supposed to be grateful for anything.
I should start an e-Petition : "No 6G licences until those who pay and get nothing get a decent 4G service".
>>Have you ever tried using a mobile phone in Cranleigh High Street?
Yes. It was worse than here at home in the Welsh Valleys, which aren't known for their radio infrastructure or indeed the radio friendly terrain; landline is a different matter... 1Gbps FTTP? no worries OGI/Spectrum have you covered (ok its CGNAT but meh), BT/EE/Openretch not so much.
Problem with using 5G in London is other people. Often have a full 5G signal on VMO2, but absolutely no bandwidth as there are too many other people trying to use it in the same area. Had to swap to text message recently to communicate with my daughter when were out and about in the West End. Properly confused her.
“Down south”
NIMBY is strong down here…as with railways, roads, hospitals, houses, reservoirs, solar farms…any kind of infrastructure…especially phone masts…are objected to and scrapped. I can barely get an FM signal where I am let alone a phone signal and I am very much down south.
It depends on how much money is kept to pay debts or for investements, and how much is paid to shareholders. For example in the sale of Vodafone Italy to SwissCom half of the money made will be used for a buyback. IIRC something alikpe happened with the Verizon sale. There's a reason while Vodafone found itself in bad waters.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-15/swisscom-to-buy-vodafone-s-italian-business-for-8-billion
Vodafone were on my blacklist anyway due to their shitty customer service. Now I foresee it going downhill even further and faster.
In the interests of efficiency they'll likely sack most of their combined customer support and replace it with AI bollocks that either doesn't understand what you are asking it or just goes around in circles.
That's what concerns me being with ID. 3 were utterly shit, forever discontinuing packages and trying to move me to much more expensive ones when there was one very similar to the one I had, and it always took ages on the phone to support to change. Coverage is good in my area though so was happy enough with an MVNO that uses them and doesn't keep changing packages.
"Vodafone were on my blacklist anyway due to their shitty customer service."
Do any of the mobile networks actually have good even at least fractionally above appalling customer service?
One of the best things that Ofcom ever did was make porting requests by text compulsory for the networks. It meant that no longer did you ever have to waste lots of time in a tedious call queue (because having a port-out form on the website would have been far too much like providing actually useful customer service) to eventually get through to hard to understand offshored call centre staff (I'm sure the experience was mutual on their part) any more, when the network decided to stiff you by deciding that your current contract was "no longer available" and "Would you like to be mandatorily upgraded to a worse contract at twice the price?" instead…
Even if the call centre maybe would have tried to offer a slightly less exploitative 'deal' in a last ditch attempt to stop you from porting out, it really just is not worth the massive inconvenience and hassle of having to deal with a call centre.
Port out somewhere else temporarily on a month-by-month SIM-only contract, port back in a few days later if the original network does actually have any good deals for "new customers" (because loyalty for existing customers never gets rewarded!), or stick with the network that you ported to, if not…
My commute from Oxford to Reading is almost entirely on EDGE.
But when I put my phone into lockdown mode and deactivated 2G I got half decent 4G.
So the problem is not that there is no 4G signal, but that the phone is preferring the 2G signal.
It seems I am not alone, based on the comments above.
It was the summer of 93. I remember because it was raining. We were just about to put the kettle on and settle down to watch Heartbeat, when all of a sudden the screen went all snowy with static, and I swear I could hear the voice of my old aunt Edna. Mind you, it couldn't have been a phone call as she'd been dead for 20 years.
Strong signal though.
Anyway, round these parts you'd have better luck sending a carrier pigeon than making a mobile call. Legend has it that a van bearing the Vodafone insignia once drove through the village. Some of the regulars swear there used to be a photo of the phenomenon hanging in the gents toilets in the pub, but it was a bit fuzzy, so maybe it was just a tractor.
I pass Newbury frequently, and have done for years - long before the bypass was opened...
Back in the day, 3G coverage worked in Newbury town, but bugger all on the bypass. 2G worked fine there. I think the bypass opened in something like 1999, and 3G wasn't a thing until about 2004. I left Vodafone around 2010 and I think there was still no 3G coverage on the A34 even then. I moved to EE at that time and was amazed when I listened to a streamed radio station all the way from Southampton to Manchester or something like that with only 2 or 3 drops. On Vodafone I would have been lucky to have had 2 or 3 3G connections over that distance. In the 1980's, on 1G/TACS and then 2G Vodafone was the network of choice, but how the mighty started to fall and lose direction.
I'm wary of this because the small Scottish village I live in has a decent 4G Three signal (network I currently use), but a pitiful 2G Vodafone signal. Really hope they do things properly when merging the networks and they don't just decide to scrap the Three network and move everyone to Vodafone's infrastructure. Otherwise I'll need to try and find a new provider!
It also helps that because I've been with Three for a long while, I still get free EU roaming from them (they only introduced roaming charges for "New" customers back in 2021 or so). Vodafone however have slapped roaming on everyone. Again, another part of my current service I hope isn't degraded. Not holding my breath through...
I've just moved from Three to Voda. Been with Three for ages and had the free Europe and North America roaming grandfathered in. I don't know what Three did but the data throughput around where I live dropped to near zero about 3 months ago and after many claims that it was 'fixed' got no better. So that finally motivated the move. Plus my OH gets a staff discount on Voda sims :)
If historical precedent is any guide it is likely the merging of systems that affect the customer that will be the hardest to merge. Anyone recall the fiasco when Vodafone upgraded their billing system and caused billing chaos for their customers? Imagine what could happen when they combine Three and Vodafone's billing systems...
"Imagine what could happen"
Customer: Hello, I've just received a bill for £3.7 million for data roaming fees in the Antarctic.
Support: Sorry sir, I can see we made an error on your bill, the £3.7 million is for data roaming fees in Spain last weekend where you used 273 terabytes of data.
Customer: But I've never been to Spain!
Support: It is here in black and white. How will you be paying the amount outstanding?
If they have any sense they will let that migration happen of its own accord
The O2 Ireland billing system is still running for legacy users 10 years after 3 Ireland took them over. All new users and upgrades get on the new system.
Some of the current 3UK staff worked on that, so hopefully the knowledge will be applied.
That doesn't bode well…
Once upon a time, the future was bright, the future was Orange (and if you thought that one of their competitors' contracts represented better value for you, they'd let you sign up to a replica of it (it's so long ago now that I've forgotten what they called that arrangement!)). And then they went through a succession of take-overs which eventually resulted in them being owned by the ever-greedy BT, and nowadays they wouldn't know a value for money contract if they slipped on the peel in the street.
And, also once upon a time, Three were innovative and shiny, and let you Roam Like Home, which kept customers happy. But, in a foolish move, they threw that away, and in doing so threw away many previously loyal customers. They plodded on, but had lost their original sparkle.
But Vodafone? They had always given the impression of being a network for business (which some might think implied a certain degree of professionalism), and for businesses with deep pockets at that (hmm, so maybe not). They have never given the impression of being a network particularly interested in ordinary users.
So, my prediction? Contracts offered by the new merged company will get even more expensive and even worse. Hurrah. Not.
if you thought that one of their competitors' contracts represented better value for you, they'd let you sign up to a replica of it (it's so long ago now that I've forgotten what they called that arrangement!)
That was the Orange Value Promise. I had many happy years on Orange, but with an O2 replica contract as it was the best value for me at the time. It was a really good thing so no wonder they ended it around 2007.
If memory serves correctly, when (previous) Virgin mobile merged with EE, within weeks they started closing masts. Coverage remained as naff as ever, failing to penetrate inside the town's only supermarket. Moved to Three for over a decade after that mainly to enjoy the US, OZ and EU roaming.
Virgin were an MVNO - they didn't have any of their own masts prior to their merger with O2.
Similarly BT - who sold off O2 many years ago - didn't have any masts prior to their takeover of EE.
The only (previous) UK merger that led to mast consolidation was Orange & T Mobile. And even that wasn't straightforward because TMo had a lot of sites they shared with 3.
...preset contractual terms for mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) customers for three years...
Ah well, three years before the party stops.
That's the real reason for the buyoutmerger. When there are SIM only deals to be had that provide 100Gb with rollover and unlimited txt/voice for a tenner a month, Vodafone's best evuh price for an iThing or similar on a two year contract starts to look very, very shit indeed.
(Hint for the hard of thinking: When you are effectively paying the very thick end of 30 quid a month for 48 months just for the handset....!)
When IT ended up doing telephony, some years ago, I started to form a negative opinion of our supplier, Vodafone. I had been using them for a while myself. The shoddy, Americanised service sent me to Three. Where shall I go now?
My employer isn't going anywhere, sadly.
While enabling cross-network roaming for ~30m customers may be simpler than full integration, there are major implications network load.
If only one of the two networks has coverage in a given area, the load on their cell will double overnight - but additional cell capacity takes months to implement.
Cells in those areas would most likely become congested - customers who previously had a decent service lose that, and customers who now have coverage where they didn't previously find that coverage isn't actually usable.
I can understand why they're not going down that route.
As always happens in this mergers. Most of the 3 UK mobile network is the one that is going to be turned off. Outside of few places where Vodafone did not have proper coverage and 3 UK had one. I guess some radio spectrum might be freeing up in UK in the future. Depending on how this all goes.
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