topic Re: Why in Off-Topic

Why

Pipstop78 — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 23:34:27 GMT

Can someone tell me why 02 and virgin decided to merge together?

Re: Why

Cleoriff — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 08:31:05 GMT

@Pipstop78 The official reason was :

Virgin Media and O2 merged to create a stronger competitor in the UK's telecommunications market. The merger was intended to help the companies keep up with 5G technology and offer consumers more choice.

VM/O2 MERGER

A real pity that the reality was a loss of 4000 jobs and a pretty appalling customer service

Re: Why

Enlli — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 08:28:34 GMT

And now they are to be outdone on the mobile front by the Vodafone / Three merger which will no doubt cause more job losses and a worse service

Re: Why

madasaf1sh — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 08:38:19 GMT

@Pipstop78

Telefonica wanted out of the UK market and Liberty Global wanted in sort of to expand the VM Service to be a true quad play offering,

Hence where we are today, having done multiple M&A's in my job, this is not unusual what VMo2 is going through and it always gets worse for a year or 3 then it turns rounds once synergies are in place and people know they have jobs etc

Re: Why

Enlli — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 10:57:55 GMT

Still think the whole combination will be sold off to the likes of vulture capitalists

Re: Why

Oxonian — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 19:49:32 GMT

This is the original official press release announcing the merger :-

LIBERTY GLOBAL AND TELEFONICA TO MERGE THEIR U.K. OPERATIONS CREATING THE LEADING FIXED-MOBILE PROVIDER IN THE COUNTRY - Virgin Media O2

https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/archive/liberty-global-and-telefonica-to-merge-their-u-k-operations-creating-the-leading-fixed-mobile-provider-in-the-country/

There is very little therein about customers but a real focus on making money ! 👍

Re: Why

Pipstop78 — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 13:11:31 GMT

Good grief what a total mess and all those people who have lost there jobs

Re: Why

Enlli — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 13:42:13 GMT

Yep, and next in line will be Vodafone and Three staff

Re: Why

Oxonian — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:51:09 GMT

Judging by the reports on the likes of Downdetector @Enlli, it looks like Vodafone have made an early start on the Three switch-off ! 😀

Re: Why

japitts — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:58:01 GMT

@Oxonian wrote:
Judging by the reports on the likes of Downdetector @Enlli, it looks like Vodafone have made an early start on the Three switch-off ! 😀

3UK have been running their 3G RAN down since the back end of 2024.

Separately, they've had a core network failure today so I'd guess the downdetector reports are from 2 groups of users.

1: Anyone calling a 3UK user, unable to connect and assuming it's their network.

2: Anyone with a 3UK number ported-out, their current network gets the blame for lack of incoming off-net calls.

Re: Why

viridis — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 09:47:52 GMT

Interesting that uk government allowed voda to merge with three but the o2 / three merger was blocked.

But anyway, having left virgin a while ago even the temptations of double speed, double data wouldn't ever tempt me back, could never get my discounted connected smartwatch (not one store had a clue about it) and virgins prices became stupid in the age where virgin wanted £69 (after discount) for 1gig, yet fibre providers wanted £35.

Some reason virgin kept pushing the "but we're giving you free evening and weekend calls" even though I don't remember asking for a phone line, nor want one.