O2 will be bought by 3?

[cyrillicguy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2922769/Three-swallows-02-10bn-phone-takeover-Giant-bought-s...

[Anonymous]

Please dont sell us out to 3. If I had wanted to be a 3 customer I would have gone to there store. It would be a shame if you sell us out as I have been a loyal customer even when it was part of BT.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't worry too much yet.

If it happens we are talking a year or so away and nothing's confirmed apart from media chatter.

[Cleoriff]

You never know it COULD be a good move for O2. ....It could be many months (years) before any takeover is approved and takes place.

Nothing has been agreed yet.....

[Bambino]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Please dont sell us out to 3. If I had wanted to be a 3 customer I would have gone to there store. It would be a shame if you sell us out as I have been a loyal customer even when it was part of BT.

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There is a thread related to this topic already running:

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Discussions-Feedback/O2-will-be-bought-by-3/td-p/842382

[Anonymous]

Hutchison were the original owners of Orange in the UK,Switzerland,Austria,Austrialia,India and Hong Kong. It was heavily invested in and the service out performed it's rivals with a high quality service, at the time Orange was the UK's second digital network with Mercury one2one being the first. Hutchison sold off Orange and the brand in 1999 but retained Orange in Austrailia,Israel and Hong kong and then launched Orange India whilst leading the Orange name from Mannesman later France telecom.

Hutchison then relaunched it's UK operations as 3 shortly after and overspent on a 3G licence.

From most people's view including myself, 3 was and still is a disappointment and is nothing near to what Hutchison presented us with Orange! What ever happened?

I expect Hutchison to seriously put up prices and reduce headcount,stores and call centres in the UK in attempt to make up for what they have spent on buying O2.

Hutchison also own O2 Ireland soon to ditch the O2 brand, once they snap up O2 UK does that give Hutchison the rights to the O2 brand as well??

And what will happen to O2 in Germany? I would expect that Hutchison will be keeping an eye on this too as they have no operations in Germany.

I can only say that if Hutchison does buy O2 it will be bad for consumers and also employees of O2.

And finally what about the MBNL and Cornerstone ventures?

O2 and Vodafone work together whilst 3 and EE work together. Surely this will cause an integration problem, it will be just one big massive network

[Anonymous]

Piperdog wrote:

I would look forward to better coverage with more masts for us to use

Exactly the same thing I came here to post! In Wales, o2 have virtually no 3g.

Maybe if you drive to a very large town or city, you'll find a small 3g patch, but the rest is stuck in the late 1990s. Combined with some recent regular mast outages, I'd be about ready to jump ship from o2 to Three - the only thing stopping me is Three's appalling customer "service".

So I'm particularly keen to know whether this merger means that o2 will be able to use three's 3g masts in areas where o2 has no 3g.

[MI5]

I would expect that you would be able to get a signal from either a 3 or O2 mast, but do expect that their will be a rationalisation programme to reduce the numbers of masts in some areas where there is duplication.

[Anonymous]

The most important aspect of a mobile phone and a mobile phone network is the ability to make phone calls especially to emergency services and 2G is very reliable for this, O2 has the best 2G coverage whilst 3 has no 2G coverage and has very patchy 3G coverage. It will take years to integrate both networks and will be a long time before seeing any improvements.

[MI5]

You can always call 999 regardless of signal as the emergency services use a different network.
Take your sim out of your phone and try it (in an emergency only, of course).

[MI5]

ps. Currently Three uses EE for voice if there is no 3g signal. It used to be O2 but it changed to EE so I guess that arrangement won't be required anymore?