T-Mobile and Orange merger latest

[m419]

The group name will be called Everything Everywhere and will become a fully active trading company in July 2010.

The Orange and T-Mobile brands will trade as seperate brands/firms for now.

Virgin Media,Mobile World/TalkTalk will continue to lease the T-Mobile network for now, who knows what its plans are when the contract is up.

The 2G networks will slowly merge and decommisioning of unecessary sites will commence.

The 3G merge of the networks would require co-operation from Hutchison 3G, what is likely to happen is a small majority of the Orange 3G sites will merge into MBNL which is the company that runs the 3G sites used by 3 and T-Mobile also owned by T-Mobile and 3. That is likely to happen between 2011 and 2013. It is also likely that Orange/T-Mobile would have to sell some of its spectrum to another network for competition reasons and the most likely would be 3.

It looks like France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have been squabbling over which brand they should use, and have therefore decided to keep both but introduce a new group name controlling both subsidiaries.

The new website is www.everythingeverywhere.com

---------- Post added at 23:16 ---------- Previous post was at 23:08 ----------

I smell trouble!

Higher costs
More foreign call centres
More job losses

But I reckon what they will do in about 5 years time is sell the whole thing off to someone else, I think this is a quick option for Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom to exit the UK market because from what I can remember, Deutsche Telekom had trouble finding a buyer for T-Mobile UK and a merge was the only option. By merging it altogether and creating such a large customer base, it will be worth a lot more!

[jrhnewark]

Haha, just signed up for their newsletter... "Thank you. We'll keep you up to date about Everything Everywhere." is perhaps a bit ambitious!!

[Damien]

The only benefit I can see is improved coverage and capacity to handle such coverage but it seems like we won't get that for a while...

[jrhnewark]

I can't see that even being the case. They'll take the best of both coverage and reduce capacity using their formulas (which often seem to fail, although I can only talk about O2 and their clearly messed-up network).

[m419]

3 is standing in the way of Everything Everywhere's 3G plan.

3 is likely to bid for a share in the spectrum of which Everything Everywhere will be forced to sell for competition reasons.

Hutchison 3G,Vodafone and strangely BT made there views quite clear that they are concerned about competition and dominance and the European Goverment has given the go-ahead for the merger BUT only if Everything Everywhere off load some the spectrum.

Orange 3G sites are likely to be merged in with MBNL. MBNL is owned by Hutchison 3G UK and T-Mobile UK and provides 3G and HSDPA coverage for T-Mobile and 3 customers. Many Orange 3G sites would also be decommisioned as they won't be needed.

O2 is likely to merge it's 3G infrastructure with Vodafone's as they are far behind.

It is not likely that Vodafone or O2 will take over 3 because operational and yet again competition reasons.

Vodafone and O2 run on similar frequences as each other but very different frequences to 3,T-Mobile and Orange.

If Vodafone or O2 was to acquire 3, you'd see a 3G network controlled by Vodafone,Orange and T-Mobile, 3 networks providing one service? I don't think so!

I think it is time Telefonica put O2 UK up for sale to be honest, there future looks bleak.

3 and Everything Everywhere will be too much competition for O2 and when it comes to 3G improvements and marketing, the cost to Telefonica is damaging.

A good move for Vodafone would be to acquire all of O2 UK including its internet service operation. That would bring Vodafone back up to being market leader and would allow Vodafone to challenge Britains ISP's and be able to compete with Everything Everywhere more effectively.