Vodafone completes mega-merger to form UK’s largest mobile phone network

25 comments

1. The infinite dilemma. Does this mean they’re so big they can do amazing things for the consumer, or does this mean they’re so big they can do amazingly horrible things to the consumer.

2. Does it mean now that vodafone gonna use three 5g masts where they had no signal before and vice versa?

3. Terrible news. Mobile service is already shit in the U.K, it’s simply about to get worse and more expensive with this consolidation. Oh, and we get to see thousands of more job-losses from both companies in the coming years, thanks to this little turn of phrase: “The combined group are also aiming to deliver £700 million in savings annually within five years.”

   I hate this timeline.

4. 4g signal in my area is shit even though their website says it’s good. 5g is non existent despite the website saying it’s good. I’ve been with Vodafone for 20+ years. Same number. If it wasn’t for my cheap monthly cost, i wouldn’t stay with them.

   Now after this merger… Will it be better for me? I doubt it.

5. You’d have to pay me to use Vodafone, they were the most expensive and inefficient company I ever had the misfortune to have used.
   I appreciated them when they helped out to give a free phone sim card, data and texts, but when I stayed with them as I appreciated the gesture I then found they were not competitive at all, they were expensive and their gesture was not to help me out, but to capture me to gouge my limit resource as much as they could. Everything they did was to confuse their customers so they could continue their pretence as market leaders.

6. I just left Vodafone at £57 a month to smarty for £8 a month, enough said

7. Meanwhile, we again have no mobile signal or data on VF as the local cell tower has no UPS; O2 share the tower and have the same issues, so the only option to explore is EE (or one of the virtual networks using EE).

8. Service will *absolutely* not get worse from this, or more expensive.

   No sir.

9. So how come this was allowed but O2 weren’t allowed to merge with Three? How many brown envelopes have been handed around for this?

10. I just know it’s gonna me cost more.

    It always does.

    They might surprise me by saying, have 30% off for 6 months to celebrate the merger.

11. yet here I am still using my o2 sim from 20 years ago, that I can go years without adding any credit to as I’m always home so just use the wifi…and then if I do need any, its £5 for unlimited text and calls…can live without going online whilst out and about.

12. Oh no, looks like cheap sims will be a thing of the past, three were always the good value cheap and cheerful option, but probably won’t be now if they’re part of Vodafone. Terrible news for the customer. I love the excuse of well it’s okay because they’ll invest more in 5g, well surely they should be doing that anyway?

13. So I’m guessing this means that within a few months that the lowest signal quality for three customers will drop from 3g to E? or might there be some silver lining that Vodafone customers would get 3G as their lowest signal?

    I’m still surprised this was allowed to go through given how O2 and three wasn’t allowed a few years ago and this has the same effect of reducing the number of operators

14. Monopoly is going to be so so so cool price wise. Since this is approved and gone through, there will be no problem with price hike due to low competitors 

15. Oh good, less competition in a space that already screws over the customer, surely this will be a net positive for everyone…

16. I think they should have allowed the merger of Three + O2 (the two shittest networks) rather than create this ubernetwork which will be able to have a very dominant market position.

17. Three mostly has its act together now, and if you use a flanker brand like Smarty it’s decent.

    I hope this merger doesn’t screw all that up.

18. I wonder how much tax they’ll avoid paying this time.

     (although in fairness they did nothing illegal despite the MSM’s assumptions and inflated figures mainly accumulated from the takeover of Germany’s Mannesman whose profits were being stashed in Luxembourg (source: The Register), either way that’s a lorra lorra wonga, chuck).

19. So it claims to be ready for invest 11billion over the next decade.

    But there is no real way to make sure they do that. Where’s competition will make sure they do.

    And in 10 years of 5g roll out, are we promised that 6G isn’t going to come online and we’ll be scrapping for that instead?

    And 0.7b savings in 5 years, so even if they repeat that, it’s just around 10-12 percent of the actual investment savings over the decade?

    So is the trade off for more competition and resilience of this network really worth it?

    We risk of a duopoly, price hikes and under development for cooperate savings..
    savings that’s no guarantee

20. I’ve been with Three since about 2007. Recently changed my ISP to EE and they have been great. Considering moving my mobile to them too…

21. Vodafone have been dogshit since the late 90s.

    Hasnt changed either

22. So two of the worst networks in the UK have joined to make an even more terrible network. Nice

23. I look forward to bills going up while service craters.

24. I swear every thread about mobile companies turns into

    – “<provider1> is shit, you couldnt pay me to use them, i’m with <provider2>”

    – “<provider2> is shit, you dont get a signal, I’m on <provider3>”

    – “<provider3> sucks, I cant get 5G!”

    Reminder that whoever you are with, they have both good, and shit coverage. It just depends where YOU are.

    All of them have crap customer support. All of them have crap prices. You get on the internet, look at the coverage maps, and try out a temporary PAYG sim to see if it works for you, if it does, great, you’ve picked which crap provider works best in your area.

25. So in other words, Three will vanish in 3 years time when Vodafone swallows the rest of the company. Now watch the speeds plummet and connection issues soar as people on both networks fight over the bandwidth from one mast! It’s a win-win!… for Vodafone. Not for the customers.

    Three have just been granted permission to install a mast at the end of my road, but obviously they won’t bother now, and they’ll just piggyback on the existing Vodafone one instead, making the existing data service worse and negating my plan to get a Three sim as backup.

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