Vodafone and Three/Hutchison to merge their UK operations?

[Norphy]

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/vodafone-hutchison-announce-uk-merger-soon-friday-sources-2023-06-07/

 

Only rumours at the moment, but a reasonably good source it would seem. That would leave just three mobile infrastructure companies in the UK:

 

EE/BT

Virgin Media O2/Liberty/Telefonica

Vodafone/Three/Hutchison

 

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Norphy

[TechMonkey]

That would explain 3s rush to get business customers to bulk up their offering, at ridiculous low prices.

 

Although saying that, this has been swirling around for a good 9ish months.

[StevieM]

Didn’t Hutchison used to own Orange, which became EE, and wasn’t O2 originally BT?*

 

(*Or am I just talking rubbish?)

[3s-gtech]

BT Cellnet became O2 and Hutchison were involved with Orange so yes. Same players, new game.

[Norphy]

Didn’t Hutchison used to own Orange, which became EE, and wasn’t O2 originally BT?*

 

(*Or am I just talking rubbish?)

 

No, I don't think you are. This is my vague recollection of events:

 

Orange originally owned by Hutchison. Bought by France Telecom

T-Mobile, owned by Deustche Telekom

Orange and T-Mob merged into EE, owned 50/50ish by the French and Germans

EE bought by BT

 

O2 originally set up as Cellnet by BT.

They demerged from BT and rebranded to O2

O2 got bought by Telefonica in Spain

They merged with Virgin Media/Liberty Global and became Virgin Media O2, owned 50/50 by the two parent companies. This was after at least one failed merger attempt with Three I think.

 

Hutchison got sellers regret, maybe, about selling Orange and set up Three when 3G networks were introduced here.

 

I don't think Vodafone has ever changed hands. Now they're (maybe?) merging their operations with Three in this country.

[Norphy]

Looks like it's official

 

https://www.vodafone.com/news/corporate-and-financial/merger-vodafone-uk-three-uk-europe-leading-5g-networks

 

Yay?

[Koldov]

Just recently had the mobile carrier switch over from 'Virgin' to 'O2'. Seems to have gone smoothly...

 

Unlike Virgin email (which I've had since the NTLWorld days), don't know if anyone has had the same, but apparently they've had some sort of catastrophic failure in their hosting servers (or have been hacked and are not admitting it) and although initially lost all email function. They have now restored send/receive functionality, however seem to be having quite a bit of trouble restoring access to a number of user's historic emails...

 

Luckily for me it isn't a major problem as for years I've only kept it due to it being tied to the account for T.V. & broadband and don't actively use it.