Is 3 UK for sale?

[Stuart C]

In the light of the continuing sale of T mobile UK to Orange, it is rumored that hutchinson is considering selling 3 UK..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03...one_3_uk_deal/

[Zee]

I doupt it. 3 have been working so hard improving their network, only to sell it to Vodafone?
Plus would this be allowed anyway, since there will be even less competition.
I hope not since that will be worse for us, price rises, less network improvements etc...

[Graham M]

Has to be said, Vodafone are dead reliable

[Stuart C]

Originally Posted by Zee

I doupt it. 3 have been working so hard improving their network, only to sell it to Vodafone?

They could be improving it to improve their resale value. After all, T mobile is spending a fortune improving it's service, and they are already for sale.

Plus would this be allowed anyway, since there will be even less competition.
I hope not since that will be worse for us, price rises, less network improvements etc...

I don't think it will be a good thing for the consumer. I actually don't think the T Mobile sale is good for the consumer.

[Zee]

Originally Posted by Graham M

Has to be said, Vodafone are dead reliable

For 2G yes, but for 3G, they are really poor. no wonder they sell them 3G signal booters.

[Graham M]

Yeah the 3G signal is that brilliant, but I rarely use it anyway

[Welshchris]

Originally Posted by Graham M

Has to be said, Vodafone are dead reliable

Their support is useless.

I was with them uptil 2002 when it took them 6 and half weeks to get a replacement handset to South Wales from Bristol and they kept blaming Securicor saying that someone there was stealing them. 4 Handsets at the same time ended up being delivered in the end after that time.

[jrhnewark]

I have a Vodafone data stick and find it to be much better than my O2 signal via iPhone. But that's just one experience - cellular comms depends on where you are and, very importantly, when!

If I were Hutchison I'd be a bit miffed. Their plan worked badly compared to Virgin Mobile's similar strategy and they had to invest huge amounts more to build a network.

---------- Post added at 11:11 ---------- Previous post was at 11:06 ----------

Another thing - slightly off-topic - as it seems we could soon end-up with two 'core' networks, as in two networks that are the real backbone of everything in the infrastructure world.

Strange how the capitalist powers that be do exactly what I would have done from an network coverage and spectrum point of view - constructed one national network, operated by the state, with all the network operators having open access based on their model.

[m419]

No its not going to happen,

3 will only sell its UK arm if it was to sell its italian arm as well, and thats certainly not going to happen since it's doing well, the italian arm currently as nearly 8 million customers.

Vodafone are unlikely to acquire Hutchison 3G UK for operational reasons, both 3 and Vodafone run on very different frequent and would be very costly to modify.

Secondly, Vodafone cannot acquire it because 3 has merged its network infrastructure with T-Mobile which will shortly become a 50/50 venture company with Orange, Vodafone are supposed to be merging its 3G infrastructure with O2's. Acquiring 3 would make no sense at all at this stage.

Orange and T-Mobile would not be able to acquire 3 for competition reasons even though they run on similar frequences and would have been a suitable acquisition for either T-Mobile or Orange, now that they are merging they won't be able to acquire 3.

BT would not be interested either purely for product portfolio rationing reasons, BT are focusing on building a better broadband for the UK and are directing there investments on upgrading existing services.

Cable and Wireless would not be really interested at re-entering the UK mobile phone market purely for financial and product portfolio reasons, there is also a demerger happening in the company.

China Mobile, could be a possible buyer, it is the worlds largest in terms of subscribers.

But to be honest I doubt Hutchison 3G are going to be selling the UK arm after the latest investments and improvements they have made.

In fact a rebrand of the company would be more suitable and wipe the floor with Orange.

If Vodafone want to lead the market, acquiring O2 would be the most suitable, I cannot see Telefonica spending much more money on O2 UK.