O2 / Virgin Merger Talks

[Oxygen87]

I know that according to the news article I read on Google News, they are only in talks but should an O2 and Virgin merger happen, would this benefit existing O2 customers? I was a T-Mobile customer when the T-Mobile / Orange merger (EE) was happening and it was not a good customer experience at all. Customers faced a hike in plan costs, forced to change plans, upgrade deals were poor, loss of signal when they were switching over the networks. Customer services went down the pan, billing was always wrong. SIM card changes left Orange customers without a phone number as the porting process went stupid and all customer perks were lost such as the once famous Orange Wednesday's. I don't think I can face going through all of that again! I know that Virgin have their own network infrastructure and that they don't just use EE's anymore which is why they are saying when they move over to Vodafone next year that customers won't have to change SIM cards.

I'm wondering what your thoughts are as customers? Would you be happy about this? I'm personally not a fan of Virgin. I guess time will tell what actually happens.

[jonsie]

I was quite happy about it when I read it this morning. I have both Virginmedia and O2 and Virgin have a stake in Vodafone too so not sure how it will work out but hopefully a stronger network with more mast sharing with them both

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/01/virgin-and-o2-plan-merger-to-challenge-sky-and-bt

[Oxygen87]

@jonsie I'm looking forward to the part of mast sharing, although I'm not so sure that it would affect me because I know that Virgin use the EE mast currently which is close to my house and they don't have a mast of their own here. I don't have Virgin Media as I don't live in a cable area. I live in a rural Nottinghamshire village that doesn't have gas or cable. I have TalkTalk for my broadband and have had them for the past 4 years.

When I say I'm not a Virgin fan, I'm strictly speaking about their mobile network.

[jonsie]

I don't have a Virgin sim, never been tempted as I've heard nothing good about them in that respect.

[Oxygen87]

They're really bad as a mobile network. The customer services are shocking. I just don't want it to be a similar thing to EE where they removed the great customer service that T-Mobile had and used the rubbish customer services that Orange had. O2 have brilliant customer services and that's a concern for me that they could get rid of that and use their own if Virgin take over full control of everything. We can only speculate, I'm sure things will work out better than EE if it happens. I hope

[Bambino]

Fewer network providers means less choice for the consumer and less need for the remaining providers to feel any need to compete for customers. It's a bad idea.

[TallTrees]

Hi @Oxygen87
Not a fan of Virgin either.
Trepidation.
Mergers mean less not more.
When I read that I was depressed.
Hope it doesn't happen 🤬

[Oxygen87]

I have to agree with you both @Bambino @TallTrees phone plans are expensive enough without them going further through the roof. Also, no more carphone warehouse for O2 also means less competition to buy their plans which could mean increased prices.

[Bambino]

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@Oxygen87 wrote:
Also, no more carphone warehouse for O2 also means less competition to buy their plans which could mean increased prices.

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Not 'could' @Oxygen87, will. If the customer is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, they will most likely just stay where they are and be forced to cough up whatever the network wants them to.

[Oxygen87]

@Bambino prices definitely soared when Phones4U was killed off by the networks. I think the aim is probably for the same fate to happen to Carphone Warehouse which is very sad. Phones4U were my favourite. I always upgraded through them.