The European Commission has decided it doesn't mind the crass splicing of pink (okay,
magenta) and orange, and has therefore provided its tastefully hued green light to the
UK merger of the two mobile operators. Once the transaction is completed this Spring, we'll still be looking at two delineated entities on the consumer market, but there'll be one back office and one consolidated network servicing the two brands. That'll remain the case for at least the next 18 months, when the joint venture between Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom, the respective parent companies of T-Mobile and Orange, will likely complete the process by rebranding itself into one entity. The press announcement is littered with vague references to synergy leveraging and value generation, but those all-important questions as to what the new operator will eventually be called and what colors it will sport are left unanswered. All that really matters for now is that the UK has a new market share leader and the mobile space became that little bit less competitive.
[Thanks, Mitchel]
posted March 2nd 2010 5:47AM
@Akhen
There's still plenty of competition don't worry.
O2, Vodafone, 3 and Virgin Mobile (though that uses T-Mobile's network)
Plus all the supermarkets and Carphone Warehouse want a piece of the action these days with their own networks, but these are piggybacked on all the existing networks.
Asda = Vodafone
Tesco Mobile = O2
Talkmobile = Vodafone
List goes on...
@TheMike What About 3 they have a deal with t-moblie or orange to use thier 3G network so basically Three will wreck arse against all of them.
Is this just T-Mobile UK or is it all of T-Mobile Europe?
@websurf90
UK.
Funny enough I really dislike Orange. T-Mobile not so much but it'd be a last resort for me. Both companies have a history of bastardizing firmware on phones and the signal of Orange in my area (Swansea City) is downright shameful. I have 3 friends on Orange and they're always low on signal and I have a house in the middle of town. On O2 I have rock solid 3G all day, as do my friends on Vodafone, everyone on Orange is lucky if they get a text out.
O2 and Vodafone remain my two choices.
Including a FREE browser in your operating system will get you in trouble, but merging two major mobile carries is just dandy? I don't get EU politics sometimes.
@BeniRose
Its amazing that you don't understand how two completely different situations have don't have any connection at all !
THis is seriously bad news for resellers/dealers.
We are business partners with T-Mob and Voda in the uk and deal with one of the biggest partners for o2 connections, orange on the other hand are useless and refuse to talk to anyone but the customer after connection. Our customers rely on us to fix problems and liase with the networks for them when they hit a problems , if this policy makes its way to T-Mobile I WILL NOT BE HAPPY!
@bengillam
I'm sure the world will die if a few middle men lose their jobs.
Everyone that works in phone shops are salesmen not support workers.
@fourthletter
thats a very narrowminded view, I am not a salesman, I am the IT manager for our firm, i support customers in getting their phone setup and configuring their email/internet/whatever etc from start to finish, not every customer is your tech savvy engadget reader, they dont want to know how or why something isnt working they just want it working, so maybe things are differnt where you are but a lot of people want the "middleman" there to talk the tech with the networks.
and more to the point, yoru phone network wont talk you though exact steps to set up your email and hold your hand through it.
All of that is besides the point, i know at the moment i can pick up the phone to T-Mobile and get problems resolved promptly without any fuss to the end user, i can dignose problems and get things fixed efficiently rather than the customer spending hours on the phone to the network because they dont know what to ask for.
The T-Mobile uk business partner dept is top notch and we can rely on them, orange on the other hand as i stated will only talk to the customer, and when they do they are next to useless (this is from years of complaints reported by customers), and its a pain in the backside for customers having to listen to a long list of techie instructions for them to ask orange only for orange to send them back with incorrect information and ends up in an endless tennis match which could be sorted in seconds with direct contact.
but the point of my comment being..
i dont want oranges policies like this to ruin the perfectly working system t-mobile have at the moment, they'll sure lose a lot of business customers if they do.
Cant wait until they get T-Mobile USA, that will really be a game changer.
So Basically T-mobile and Three Have Been Merging Networks for the past year. Now Orange And T-mobile Merging and creating one big company with Three Using Orange And T-mobile's Network Coverage, Making The UK biggest network Coverage supposedly. Then hopefully o2 and Vodafone might give some of their 900mhz spectrum or wait for the digital switch-over what then release the 800mhz and hello indoor broadband on T-orange And Three.
Deutsche Telecom + France Telecom = DFT?
What if they also merge with Italy Telecom and have a hostile takeover of Poland Telecom? Axis Telecom?
T-ang
t-morange?
I work for one of these companies setting appointments for the business team, and enjoy being abused and hung up on every day by Voda and O2 customers whilst just trying to do my job, but there are plenty of complaints about all the providers - voda included. People are generally horrible and want a chance to whinge. I say nuts to all you business mobile phone users - and next time you want to yell at someone who calls to have a chat about an appointment for a Telecom quote, I hope a bird poops on you in your lunch hour.