Are you in a remote field in the UK? Haven’t seen speeds that slow since 3G was the dominant signal.
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Vodafone and Three Merging Networks to Form UK's Largest Mobile Operator
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The merger is about expanding 5G. Since 5G requires significantly more base stations the cost is much more. Vodafone have said for the past few years they need a merger to be able to compete with the other big 2 in terms of infrastructure upgrades. Of course, there will be synergies resulting in cost saving but it really is what the UK market needs. It was deemed by the CMA when they approved the O2 Virgin media merger that consolidation of the big networks was needed to keep 5G investment going and with all if the low price MVNOs available in the UK it is unlikely to affect competition.
The UK isn’t just London though. Reception is poor away from major cities and 5G is nonexistent unless you’re in the centre of each of those cities. It’s shockingly poor for such a small country and with so much invested.
You've clearly never been to the States and tried their networks. On 4G you'll get 600MBps, over 1GBps on 5G in a lot of places
There are large parts of Wales still that only have 3G and then parts where there is no coverage at all. I’ve even experienced dead spots in parts of Oxfordshire which is astonishing considering how flat the county is and where it is.
It depends on how they react. The Big 3 could be happy carving up the market more or less equally, and while not colluding simply match any price hikes to keep things stable.
Where consumers benefit is when one decides to aggressively pursue growth, like T-Mob in the US, and introduce pricing plans and features to capture customers from the competition, forcing them to react. Given the penetration of cell phones in the UK, one can reasonably expect the later to occur; unless the Big 3 decide it is unsportsmanlike to steal from each other.
At least she didn't privatize the Forces or else they'd simply have sold the Falklands to Argentina and paid the Generals and Admirals a nice bonus for increasing profits.
Clearly a communications barrier...
I get great coverage and speeds in Portugal, even in non-urban areas.
Yes, but my personal phone is with 3 and my work phone with Vodafone - so I am a customer/user for both (I also used to have a 3rd phone when I did some contract work - that was with O2) - I suspect I am not alone in being a customer/user for more than one phone company, hence being counted twice in the figures quoted...
yeah, like I said, this (Sprint/TMo) is the most viable megamerger I can see arguing for in the last 5-10 years. TMo has consistently worked on being disruptive in the mobile telecom sector, and picking up the extra coverage from Sprint was a net positive.
I'll say fwiw that I don't know much about mobile telecom in the UK. I just know about what goes on over here in the good ol' US of A—where AT&T and Verizon (as aforementioned) have a virtual duopoly, and TMo has been working overtime to disrupt that (with…some level of success). additionally, telecom (at least over here) is one of the greediest and scummiest industries within capitalism, and I'm not super optimistic about seeing two companies merge to become the biggest carrier—but any education from those who are more knowledgable about the space in the UK is appreciated!
That’s never been true. Economies of Scale, especially in an industry where the very air it uses is limited in capacity, is at scale and a large factor. Building networks is highly cost prohibitive, and now you add more “choice” and it becomes a redundant network - paying for the same thing a second, third, fourth time (and so on) at the same cost. Less users paying for that network means higher costs to maintain and expand that network per user. More users, the lower the costs become per user. It’s a fixed cost spread out equally.
I get this at work in Middlesbrough, I get around 600Mbps at home
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People have tablets, iPads, Apple Watches and Smartwatches so I guess that counts too.
Interestingly enough, the Telecom industry in the US started out as a bunch of small companies where you could not interconnect across networks, asked the government to regulate them and fix pricing so as to eliminate expensive completion in exchange for one system and a fixed return. After Ma Bell grew to be huge the government decided to break them up, and eventually the Baby Bells reassembled themselves into the current big two, engulfing a number of former Baby Bells as well as independent wireless providers, and T-Mobile emerged from an independent wireless provider as did Sprint.
Yeah, like that worked with air carriers. Go look at US prices to see what happens when you reduce choice.