News Three owner buys O2 for £10.25 billion

What about the recent deal for BT to buy EE? Is this deal bigger than that? Won't this effectively mean we have only two major mobile operators now?

 

The BT deal is big, but it's not combining anything - it's just EE's mobile business under the BT umbrella. BT's current mobile business is just O2 / Vodafone MVNO.

Three and O2 will become a major mobile operator, along with BT/EE, and Vodafone will be the third.

 

BT buying EE hasn't been approved yet by the regulators.

As for only two companies, Sky is apparently planning to enter the mobile market s well, so that would bring it uo to three (or four, if you count virgin who are still stuck on 3G).

 

The sector's been quite turbulent over recent months. Vodafone were at one point going to buy Sky, then Sky announced a wholesale package purchase to offer mobiles to its customers through O2. Either way there's still 3 players, EE, O2/3 and Vodafone.

 

I can tell you that Sky will only be a MVNO - it will not have its own network.

There are loads of MVNOs now, Sainsburys, Tesco, Giff Gaff etc.

Also, Vodafone buying Sky has never been on the cards. There was talk of a partnership for some time.

Source: I work for Sky.

 

As a current Three subscriber, I can only see this leading to bad things. Three being one of the smaller providers by market share gives them the incentive to offer competitive prices. If the conglomerated userbase for O2 and Three ends up as the largest provider, their incentive is to raise prices and offer less service, because they have no reason not to, to increase profit. I can't see the current £15-a-month unlimited-everything plan surviving.

 

Oh balls. Been with O2 since the BT Cellnet days and always had pretty good service from them. Used a 3 phone for a while on a separate contract and it was the worst experience I have ever had, the service was terrible, calls dropped all the time, sporadic data services to say the least and trying to deal with them about the problems was worse than terrible.

Got another year to go on this contract so we shall see how things turn out, don't want to have to pay up to leave early but if I have to then that's that.

 

Shouldn't this article read 'O2 UK'? As it is only O2 UK that is part of this deal and there are several O2 networks that will continue to exist although some have already gone (Three already bought O2 Ireland and merged them under Three).

@ Parge:
Correct me if I am wrong but GiffGaff is not an MVNO as they are owned by Telefonica and isn't a third party.

@ Dogbert:
I spend quite a bit of time over in Germany and it vexes me that Germany is not part of that Feel At Home offer...

@ Almightyrastus
Why would you leave O2 now just because Three have bought them? Three will be incorporating O2's network in to their own so there won't be any negative effect on the current O2 network. Besides, from everything I hear these days the complaints of old regarding Three are all but 'in the past'...

 

As i said when the merger was first rumoured - knowing our luck we'll get the worst of both networks: o2's prices [which is why I left them, for 3 funnily enough] and 3's CS [which is still utter utter garbage]...

 

Hasn't existed for a bit iirc. The current all you can eat sim only plans are £27 for the 12 month contract, or £30 for the one month rolling contract. My unlimited data,200 mins has gone up from £12.90 to £20!

Feel at home is awesome. Currently in Italy and I've been able to skype my nieces. It's worth noting though unlimited data doesn't exist abroad. It's limited to 25GB. Shame you can't tether on it, but it'd probably be abused.

 

Will be in New York in June, and feel at home will save me having to pop into At&T for a temp SIM card, and around $50.
I've been with three for a few years now and have not had an issue, only good customer service tbh.


PS, and Parge is right Sky will be an MVNO, on the thick end fully integrated with control over packaging and service offerings - but yeah an MVNO none the less - Sky won't be erecting mobile masts or buying up available spectrums.

 

Are telefonica also selling giffgaff or will they continue to run that as a mvno?

 

I like three - I've been with them pretty much since they started up about 10 years ago. They are so much better than they used to be.

Hopefully it will mean better prices and more coverage no? I've never found their current prices to be particularly keen, so I can't imagine them going up.

 

First I've heard of that; my "ultimate internet SIM 200 1 month" is still £12.90 as of last billing cycle and haven't heard anything of an increase yet...

New customers are £20 for 200 minute unlimited data bundle only because there are now unlimited SMS included compared to 5000 on the older £12.90 tariff from what I can see!

Quite how 5000 SMS in not equivalent to unlimited for most people is another matter!

 

Mine hasn't gone up in price, I was saying that that's how the price of the tariff. As you say, 5000 texts is pretty much unlimited, and I know I've previously seem tariffs with unlimited texts having a fair usage policy of 5000 -no idea on the Three one since it'll be a fair bit of hassle for me to check. The original tariff is gone. I wonder if they ' added' unlimited texts when they last upped the price to £15ish or more recently.

 

These two posts being made consecutively is quite a neat way of summing-up reactions I think

I guess as pawns in the game we'll just have to see how things ultimately pan out.

 

I moved to 3 (321 payg) last October from an EE/Orange (dolphin contract) and my coverage at home is worse but offset by the Three InTouch app which lets you use Wifi for coverage. My coverage out and about is better than I had with EE/Orange. My average monthly cost going from £21 down to £3 has also been a major bonus. Hoping this merger leads to better in house coverage.

When was with Three 2+ years ago for a few years and had some dealings with their CS department, all were very good. Orange had some of the worst I've ever experienced, being called a liar, while quoting the prices they offer new customers on their website, definitely shocked me somewhat.