Three UK's owner is reportedly plotting a £9 billion bid for O2

[viridis]

"Telefonica-owned O2 has quietly become the subject of interest from Three UK owner Hutchison Whampoa. According to The Sunday Times, the UK mobile market could quite soon shrink from four major operators to just three, after talks between the two companies reportedly progressed to a point where Hutchison Whampoa is ready to make a £9 billion bid for Britain's second-biggest carrier."

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/18/hutchison-whampoa-o2-acquisition/

[Anonymous]

I've always found O2's customer service to be very good. I'm not a big fan of overseas call centres at all. So if the Three takeover happened, that's one thing I would miss for sure and also a fear of what would happen to O2's customer service staff in the UK.

I have heard about Three's overseas customer service been a bit of a nightmare over on Facebook and on various places on the net, but you tend to only hear the bad customer service experiences rather than the good experiences (people are more likely to post complaints, gripes etc than good experiences).

[MI5]

All of O2's CS is going abroad anyway so that will make no difference long term.

[iar1980]

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/sky-talktalk-join-race-buy-090100674.html

[Beenherebefore]

Spanish stutterings to go with the Chinese whispers 

So that's all the possible combinations covered then.......oh no !.....there's AT&T still in the background 

[viridis]

Anyone would think o2 is for sale lmao

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I've always found O2's customer service to be very good. I'm not a big fan of overseas call centres at all. So if the Three takeover happened, that's one thing I would miss for sure and also a fear of what would happen to O2's customer service staff in the UK.

I have heard about Three's overseas customer service been a bit of a nightmare over on Facebook and on various places on the net, but you tend to only hear the bad customer service experiences rather than the good experiences (people are more likely to post complaints, gripes etc than good experiences).

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I was with Three for six months, and on the few occasions that I'd needed to contact them, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how efficiently my enquiry was dealt with. All networks are capable of delivering poor service from time to time, but I think many people are judging Three on how bad they used to be, rather than how they're performing today. They're certainly putting the likes of BT and Talk Talk to shame though, as this latest Ofcom Report highlights.

[jezza1234]

There is more to this than immediately meets the eye me-thinks.

Airwave, which is the emergency services radio solution, is to be replaced with a new solution. This New solution will be an LTE 4G based soluton. This contract will be worth millions over it's lifetime and of course large players will want to bid for it.

BT cannot put in an effective bid without a network to offer and other netwrk providers and equipment manufacturers(Hutchinson) will also need a network.

This is big buisness at its best and in reality it will have little or no effect on domestic users of either network.

just my view but based upon a deal of industry knowledge..

[jezza1234]

Just as a footnote some of you will probably say "well Hutchinson already own the Three network so why no bid with that one?"

it is my understanding that Three has no major plans to roll out 4G anytime soon as there data network already runs just fractionally short of 4G speeds so wht invest all that money when you can just go out and buy a network that has a 4G rollout plan?

[Anonymous]

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@jezza1234 wrote:

Just as a footnote some of you will probably say "well Hutchinson already own the Three network so why no bid with that one?"

it is my understanding that Three has no major plans to roll out 4G anytime soon as there data network already runs just fractionally short of 4G speeds so wht invest all that money when you can just go out and buy a network that has a 4G rollout plan?

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Three's 4G roll-out is already happening.  I've tried it myself, and it's impressive  

[MI5]

Here too.....