UK carriers ganging up on 3?
The underdog in Britain's mobile market, 3, is accusing its larger rivals of trying to shut it out of the market to the tune of £250 million (about $500 million), taking its sob story all the way to the UK's court system. The claim revolves around a series of meetings in 2005 of the Operator Steering Group -- a group to which Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, O2, and 3 all belonged -- in which everyone but 3 voted to keep the nation's number transfer delay at five days, despite the fact that the process takes mere hours in other European countries. 3 claims that the larger carriers are using this excruciatingly long window to convince folks porting their numbers to 3 to stay by throwing fantastic discount packages their way. On the surface it all sounds like a plea for government help when the little guy finds itself unable to compete, but who knows, maybe there's some actual collusion going on here.
[Via textually.org]
