Vodafone and Three Merging Networks to Form UK's Largest Mobile Operator

[4odomi]

British mobile phone operators Vodafone and Three UK have agreed a deal to merge their UK-based operations, which if approved by regulators will make it the biggest mobile network in the country.

Currently the biggest players in the UK mobile market are Virgin Media O2, with around 24 million customers, and EE, which has 20 million users.

Vodafone and Three UK are the third and fourth largest mobile firms, but the merger will give them around 27 million customers, taking their combined market share past Virgin Media O2's.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will now examine the merger, specifically to look at whether it will push up customer prices.

Vodafone and Three claimed the deal will be "great for customers, great for the country, great for competition," but the CMA may not see it that way.

The same competition watchdog in May blocked UK approval for Microsoft's proposed $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard.

Speaking to the BBC News, Karen Egan, head of mobile at research firm Enders Analysis, said similar deals in other countries had not led to price hikes, but added that "CMA's hawkish approach to mergers of late is not encouraging."

The Unite union, which represents Vodafone and Three workers, disagreed, saying that the deal was "reckless" and would "hike people's bills and mean job losses."

Vodafone has already set out plans to cut 11,000 jobs, with CEO and CFO Margherita Della Valle admitting in May that its "performance has not been good enough." Both companies have since indicated additional job cuts within five years if the merger is approved.

Article Link: Vodafone and Three Merging Networks to Form UK's Largest Mobile Operator

Couldn't chose which one is worst?
They'll now be one worst network instead of two in the UK,
EE & O2 are still 1 & 2 for quality

 

[jlc1978]

Yeah, like that worked with air carriers. Go look at US prices to see what happens when you reduce choice.

As someone who flew a lot pre pandemic, deregulation, even with consolidation, greatly reduce airfares. Fares on major routes had dropped to 1/3 of what I used to pay 15 years ago.

 

[4odomi]

I’m with EE and they are the best for speed but expensive

Speed & Signal
I've been with them for 5 years and I can't really complain, I wouldn't touch 3 or Vodafone with a barge pole, even though they're slightly cheaper, o2 is good but they don't have BT sport included, which pretty much keeps me with EE

 

[naltst*]

Unless it’s changed only EE and O2 offer Visual Voicemail. That rules out Three and Vodafone.

Vodafone do have it

 

[4odomi]

I think these combined UK user/subscriber figures across the major networks are a tad wonky. 71m? There’s only about 68m people live in the UK, and they don’t all have cellphones…

It actually shows how poor the government census is......68 mil is actually false massaged figures ti hide the immigration 😏

 

[4odomi]

We’ll there goes your argument out the window! (London, VOXI)

The guy has either never been to the UK or he spends all his time on the London Underground 🤣 Alternatively he gets 3 or Vodafone?
These are mine, in my back Garden Garage on EE 4G network

 

[4odomi]

Well, I can attest to Spain having great coverage. I’ll never forget trying 5G for the first time 🤣

were u standing under a 5G tower?

 

[TheLunaPark]

No experience with Three but personally I've found Vodafone to be absolute dogs*t. As others have said, the only winners here will be the executive teams.

 

[svish]

Hopefully this will lead to better network quality.

 

[beanbaguk]

Really? I regularly get 500mb+ on O2 in the centre of London and at least 200mb elsewhere. The only time I get bad reception is inside faraday cage buildings like metal framed supermarkets.

Yes. Really.

I don't go back all too often; however, I happened to be in the UK a couple of weeks back in Hampstead, and Epsom.

I have an iPhone 14 Pro (so I'd say a decent phone), and I regularly found the connection would hang when trying to do the simplest things like use Google Maps to get around and about.

There were moments of "glory" where the transfers would speed up, but much of the time it was very slow. I didn't do any speed tests while I was over that time, but in previous visits to my parents in Reading, the connection was just abysmal. As I am roaming, I was able to use any network, but it would prefer Vodafone as this is what I use in the Spain where I live, but they were all equally bad. It's a bit unfortunate for me as I remote work, and I've often thought about spending time in the UK at my parents, so I can see them more, but even their "lightning fast fibre" which is meant to offer something like 100Mbps, often dogs down to a paltry 10-20Mbps with huge latency.

Maybe my experiences have just been unfortunate, but I literally live on the side of a mountain in Spain, about 15km inland from the sea, and I consistently get between 70-100Mbps on 5G, and 50-70Mbps on 4G. My fibre line is 600Mbps asymmetric. If you then head into a big city, those 5G speeds ramp up massively.

The only time I've ever truly experienced issues is at a festival and speeds fell but were still manageable. But don't get me started on festivals in the UK. Phones become utterly useless as networks fail to anticipate demand and the networks clog down to a crawl.

A thought that just came to mind is the fact that I am roaming with a foreign SIM, so perhaps my traffic is not prioritised over local customers? Who knows....

 

[marklemac]

Vodafone do have it

I hope this merger brings Visual Voicemail to the THREE customers, and the THREE prices to the Vodafone users. (once merged)

 

[JiggyJaggy]

Hugely doubt they will prices down. Maybe they will use it as a two tiered system for different levels of service?

 

[Zorori]

Whenever I go back to the UK, I am always shocked at how terrible their networks perform. Seriously....it's garbage. 5G is next to useless, and 4G runs no better than 2-4Mbps. It's truly terrible. I put it down to population density, but that just means that the operators simply are not providing the necessary bandwidth capacity. London, for example, is atrocious!

It’s weird. I used to get 8mbs on 3G a decade back.

After being in Japan, I realise how crummy the connections are here. I would get 20 on 4G on a “slow MVNO” and around 40 on a better carrier

 

[rp2011]

wow, those are two of the most badly crafted corporate logos I have ever seen. Hopefully, they can come up with something less amateurish for the new combined company.

 

[diarbyrag]

They better not mess with the pricing, I was with T-Mobile because they were cheap. They merged to become EE and swiftly went from the cheapest to most expensive network, I went with Three because they were the new cheapest network.

Ditto, three have been fine, I left Voda years ago for overcharging on bills, not happy about this merger, yet again less choice of providers. soon there will only be one ...

 

[diarbyrag]

Back in 2016 the UK was still in the EU, so that merger was actually blocked by the EU anti-competitive lot.

Now that the UK are out, it will be interesting to see how this unravels.

Whole country unravelling after brexit so nothing surprises me anymore, our government not fit and only happy to see their rich friends and donors get richer

 

[BuffaloTF]

Yeah, like that worked with air carriers. Go look at US prices to see what happens when you reduce choice.

Ok... the word you're looking for in airfare is "deregulation" and not consolidation. Consolidation doesn't play a part in say, Atlanta, where Delta owns 80% of the parking spots. They didn't buy their way to that. They also footed the bill for huge infrastructure investments in Atlanta and LaGuardia, so that's a huge win. Competition isn't the overall number of airlines. It's the number of airlines that serve a specific route. When you have 2 actual competitors in wireless; and then 2 bums that aren't competition but are really just names out there that can't compete, like T-Mobile and Sprint in the US - merging them created a 3 competitor, but the overall number went down. But prices went down with a 3rd added to the mix, and perks went up.

 

[Mind The Mac]

Yes. Really.

I don't go back all too often; however, I happened to be in the UK a couple of weeks back in Hampstead, and Epsom.

I have an iPhone 14 Pro (so I'd say a decent phone), and I regularly found the connection would hang when trying to do the simplest things like use Google Maps to get around and about.

There were moments of "glory" where the transfers would speed up, but much of the time it was very slow. I didn't do any speed tests while I was over that time, but in previous visits to my parents in Reading, the connection was just abysmal. As I am roaming, I was able to use any network, but it would prefer Vodafone as this is what I use in the Spain where I live, but they were all equally bad. It's a bit unfortunate for me as I remote work, and I've often thought about spending time in the UK at my parents, so I can see them more, but even their "lightning fast fibre" which is meant to offer something like 100Mbps, often dogs down to a paltry 10-20Mbps with huge latency.

Maybe my experiences have just been unfortunate, but I literally live on the side of a mountain in Spain, about 15km inland from the sea, and I consistently get between 70-100Mbps on 5G, and 50-70Mbps on 4G. My fibre line is 600Mbps asymmetric. If you then head into a big city, those 5G speeds ramp up massively.

The only time I've ever truly experienced issues is at a festival and speeds fell but were still manageable. But don't get me started on festivals in the UK. Phones become utterly useless as networks fail to anticipate demand and the networks clog down to a crawl.

A thought that just came to mind is the fact that I am roaming with a foreign SIM, so perhaps my traffic is not prioritised over local customers? Who knows....

As this is happening across all the U.K. providers, that as a roaming user you can access so enjoying the best coverage, is it possible your Spanish provider’s contract, in someway throttles speeds while roaming or has not provisioned your account properly? Worth a check maybe, as I experienced this in reverse and as my U.K. provider acknowledged, that while my contract allowed full speed, somehow my account had been mis-provisioned. They refunded the roaming costs in full and corrected the provisioning.

Also, are you using sim or e-sim?

Edit: added question

 

[AlexisV]

3 used to be the cheapest network and I remember going with them when I got my first iPhone - the 4.

Stayed with them for the iPhone 5 and then their prices rocketed.

The secondary piggyback networks are now much cheaper. No idea why anyone wouldn't go with GiffGaff, Tesco etc. nowadays.

 

[AlexisV]

Ditto, three have been fine, I left Voda years ago for overcharging on bills, not happy about this merger, yet again less choice of providers. soon there will only be one ...

Three are "fine" until you try to leave. Nightmare.

 

[H2SO4]

The only things the merger would do is make thousands of employees redundant whilst making directors richer.

Would it not also give those on Vodafone increased coverage in areas covered by Three only and vice versa?

 

[Wanted797]

Didn’t know 3 even still existed elsewhere in the world.

They merged here in Aus 13 years ago.

 

[laptech]

Would it not also give those on Vodafone increased coverage in areas covered by Three only and vice versa?

Thousands of people are going to lose their jobs, company bosses will get richer and what is it that you see? customers will get better coverage!!!. I despair

 

[H2SO4]

Thousands of people are going to lose their jobs, company bosses will get richer and what is it that you see? customers will get better coverage!!!. I despair

My point is that there is a way to present facts. The OP, (you), didn't do that. In fact you posted, (with my emphasis);
The ONLY THINGS the merger would do is make thousands of employees redundant whilst making directors richer.
You're despairing over what a position I might have that you have ASSUMED?

 

[Steve121178]

I think these combined UK user/subscriber figures across the major networks are a tad wonky. 71m? There’s only about 68m people live in the UK, and they don’t all have cellphones…

You're forgetting that some people have two connections (personal phone, work phone), then add data/broadband plans etc.

I have personal, work & data plans so I will count as 3 connections just by myself.