O2 and Three mobile merger blocked by European Commission

[HEXUS]

£10 billion deal halted due to customer choice and competition concerns.

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[cheesemp]

Good!

[virtuo]

I'm with three, and they've already put their prices up, I was hopeful for some extra coverage out of the deal.

And wouldn't they have operated separately anyway?

[Ferral]

But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile

Not forgetting though that O2 (Telefonica) bought the failing BT Mobile many years ago and their infrastructure

Go figure

[jim]

But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile

Not forgetting though that O2 (Telefonica) bought the failing BT Mobile many years ago and their infrastructure

Go figure

To be fair, BT was only an MVNO and piggybacked off Vodafone and O2. Admittedly, Orange and T-Mobile took us down to 4 providers but it seems that the limit has been set at 4 for now.

I would expect Liberty (i.e. Virgin Media) to buy O2 now, but we'll see. Or perhaps Sky will get involved.

[LSG501]

But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile

Not to mention it's perfectly all right to have openreach and bt as one company stifling any real competition in the landline/broadband market...

But on a side note.... why exactly do the EU commission need to block a solely UK matter from going ahead. The UK watchdog had to ask the EU to do this...why, can't our own watchdog do it?

[The Hand]

3 is owned by Hutchinson based in Hong Kong in other words China.. so I'm wondering if EU protectionism might have played a part, though not necessarily in a bad way.

[jag272]

Pretty disappointed with that decision. I myself use Three's PAYG and its remarkably cheap, but while the phone coverage is good, its not on O2's level. I honestly would've been fine with a minor price markup in return for the better coverage, Three is already significantly cheaper than anyone else offering PAYG. I can't speak for contract users ofcourse as I don't call people enough for it to be good value for me.

If anything surely Three's prices are forcing other providers to be more competitive on the PAYG market, so surely providing them with stronger coverage would further help in the matter. Theres the fear of it potentially becoming a monopoly if it went too far ofcourse, if Three was able to offer the best coverage (though O2 is still actually behind EE I believe) at a cheaper price, but frankly I think giving EE and Vodafone this level of competition would have been beneficial.

But whatever, there was always a high chance that some sort of regulatory body was going to get involved in such a substantial merger, but I think if any deserved to be passed it was this one.

[crossy]

But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile

That pretty much sums up my feelings too, especially as I would have thought that the formation of EE was a far bigger reduction of consumer choice than the Three merger would have been. I can only assume that the change of personnel in the Commission in the meantime means that they're looking harder now - the alternative of course being some dubious behind-the-scenes manoeuvring.

Personally I would have liked to see the merger, only from the point of view of giving EE some more effective competition in 4G.

[shaithis]

Good news, just a shame they didn't block the EE/T-Mob merger

[Saracen]

Good news, just a shame they didn't block the EE/T-Mob merger

That.

And quite a few other mergers too, not least the dramatic reduction in competition in banking. In my opinion, when very large businesses merge into super-corporations, it is utterly inevitable that sooner or later, one way or another, Joe Consumer gets right royally f..... erm, shafted.

[Jowsey]

It's the inconsistency that is annoying me.

They may argue that 3 would jack the prices up (probably correct) but EE did just that! Have you actually seen the prices of any of their contracts with a decent data allowance?!?!

Have they just set an random number as the minimum number of providers? There is no genuine reasoning as why one went through and the other didn't.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that 3's weakness has always been coverage and internal reception and this merger would have provider wave bands that helped fixs those flaws and would open up the 3 benefits (feel at home, cheap 4g, 321 PAYG) to the people who previously only had a choice between O2 (and maybe vodafone) due to signal issues.

Blah. How annoying.

[jag272]

It's the inconsistency that is annoying me.

They may argue that 3 would jack the prices up (probably correct) but EE did just that! Have you actually seen the prices of any of their contracts with a decent data allowance?!?!

Have they just set an random number as the minimum number of providers? There is no genuine reasoning as why one went through and the other didn't.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that 3's weakness has always been coverage and internal reception and this merger would have provider wave bands that helped fixs those flaws and would open up the 3 benefits (feel at home, cheap 4g, 321 PAYG) to the people who previously only had a choice between O2 (and maybe vodafone) due to signal issues.

Blah. How annoying.

Ye this is what bothers me. Three's prices are great, just their reception is a little lacking. It's plenty usable, just a little patchy especially indoors. Having Three with O2's reception would be great, even if they had to jack up the price a little bit as a result. It may well be less competition in the market, but its stronger competition, which personally I think matters more.

[Michael H]

If Hutchison (3) were going to enter a wholesale agreement with Liberty (Virgin) had the merger gone through, perhaps the two could enter into a partnership to share spectrum and infrastructure costs should Liberty purchase O2's assets.

[Afrocomb]

The supposed competition is doing little to control prices. This decision is unlikely to aid consumers from a pricing perspective, but will hurt them when it comes to coverage.

[Kumagawa]

But it was perfectly ok for Orange and T Mobile to merge and then be bought by BT who also offers BT Mobile

Not forgetting though that O2 (Telefonica) bought the failing BT Mobile many years ago and their infrastructure

Go figure

No way the EU is going to make German and French companies unhappy but a Hong Kong one? who cares. Still expect O2 to be sold to someone soon enough.