T Mobile to leave UK.
 

It would seem so, if their two major shareholders get their way..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05...oning_blighty/

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Hmmm... could be interesting!

I think that Virgin Mobile actually runs over the T-Mobile network.

edit
Indeed:
http://about.virginmobile.com/aboutus/about/history/

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

If 3 take over I think I'll slit my wrists.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

To be honest, Virgin Mobile probably haven't helped matters wrt the Register story. I vaguely remember reading something a year or so ago that they had managed to get a contract that was essentially loss making for T-Mobile and refused to budge as they had no reason to. I'll have to do some digging to find it though...

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Don't forget to upload it on you tube!

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

http://financialadvice.co.uk/news/3/...e-persist.html

Possible merger with orange?

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Hmmm wonder how much they paid for that Prime time 4 minute advert on Britains Got Talent last nite? :dunce:

think a merger with Orange is likely. 3 may be small in the UK but they are owned by massive asian super company who won't want to merge.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

YAY! I'm so glad! That means I will get much better reception on 3 if it goes ahead.

---------- Post added at 19:23 ---------- Previous post was at 18:13 ----------

3 well Hutchison is actually a good company and network,however,it is still relatively new and the other networks experienced this in the 90's.

3 has encountered problems:

Not being able to install masts due to petitions from local communities,there is still insufficient evidence that masts are a health hazzard.

Goverment intereference forcing the company to expand and to run before it walks.

In the other countries it operates in including its Orange operations in some countries, it has not encountered these problems and has good coverage and a good track record, Britain has always been like that,just look at the Cable and pay-tv market and Music industry!

If 3 takes over T-Mobile UK, 3 will be taking on:

a 2.5G network which covers 98% of the UK
A 3G network that already covers 70% of the UK.
UK Call centres! Can you really see 3 giving everyone the sack? Of course there will be many job losses,but they will keep some call centres.

T-Mobile customers will benefit from the following:

Cheaper rates
Wider 3G coverage
Better Mobile Internet and Internet content such as Skype

Existing 3 customers will benefit from:

A 2.5G network
A wider 3G coverage
And maybe cheaper rates
And maybe UK call centres

3 will have more 3G masts and it will have a strong 2.5G back up.

Virgin Mobile customers will also benefit from better 3G services as I beleive Hutchison 3G was working with Telewest and had a good relationship.

3 will also save on costs too, at the moment it depends Orange's 2.5G network for back up, well Hutchison 3G will no longer have to subsidise that, which means it will have more money for itself.

So if they do merge, it will mean Britain will have a perfect 3G network fit for the 21st Century!

It is definately a good idea though because I mean both network users will benefit from improved network coverage, At the moment the network coverage on both networks is average.

If this does happen, it is likely that O2 UK would be swallowed up in time, O2's 3G coverage only covers around 60%.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

All that pales in to insignificance if you've ever had to call 3's "thank you please" customer service.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

God, I hope they don't merge with Orange. I left them 2 years ago because their customer service was atrocious; even 3's Indian call centres are better! Orange always manage to finish bottom of broadband surveys and their phone support is exactly the same.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Quite - I was hoping I was well rid of them.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Firstly, sorry to snip the quote!

In terms of your coverage on 3 if they merged/bought T-Mobile, sorry it's not that simple, Networks are engineered to a certain level and dumping 3 subscribers onto the T-Mobile infrastructure would probably cause enough problems to annoy both sets of customers so that's not likely to happen. I suspect the best you could hope from (eventually) would be that new subscribers get placed against the infrastructure that has the most spare capacity.

For T-Mobile subscribers on more expensive tarrifs that 3 offers - reductions won't happen. Why would 3 reduce the contract price when they can reap the profits from it?

Also, Virgin Mobile customers won't benefit from anything that's not in the contract between T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile. 3 aren't going to offer something for free that would benefit a competitor brand.

The instant improvement sounds nice from a subscriber perspective, but given most of the phones are locked down to the network they were bought on to try and protect revenue streams that's not likely to happen.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Three, T-Mobile, and Vodafone have outsourced their field operations to Ericsson .. A merger with Orange is unlikely.

A merger with Three however........

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Actually, it's not that much newer than the other companies. Apart from Vodafone and Cellnet/O2 they were all formed in the early 90s. 3 initially started in the late 90s/early 2000s.

And remember, when dealing with 3G, *all* the companies have relatively new networks. It just that (amongst my friends anyway), 3s is considerably more unreliable than any others.
Again, all the networks have experienced both of those.

What on earth has the music industry go to do with it?

Yes, I can, if they feel it will save money. Remember, they had the option to use UK call centres initially. They didn't.

---------- Post added at 00:10 ---------- Previous post was at 00:06 ----------

Also bear in that while one network may well have more 3G coverage than the other, a *lot* of the areas will be duplicated between the two networks, especially in towns and cities.

Yes, the merger will be nice for some people. It's doubtful it'll be nice for the subscribers though.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

The outsourcing of the infrastructure maintenance is (IMO) pretty much irrelevant. Ignoring the engineering limitations of the individual networks i mentioned earlier, the changes required on the network side are significant enough that E// would ask for a bundle of cash to make those changes - which in itself rules out the subscriber friendly merger in the current climate.

---------- Post added at 00:16 ---------- Previous post was at 00:13 ----------

That's true. And given 3's backup for anything they couldn't cover was O2, the first cost-saving measure would be to knock that on the head and have it as T-Mobile. Which brings us back to my earlier comment on the impact of that on the T-Mobile network and it annoying more subscribers than it helps...

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

As you use the E/// acronym I believe you're in the business, BUT as for the Three / T-Mobile merger ..... the co-location projects well under way under the name 'Project Moran'.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

What would happen to me?

I'm using pay as you go on T-Mobile, on text appeal (3p texts). I use it because I simply don't use my phone enough to be on contract. I don't know of any company (I haven't actually researched) that offers such cheap texts. I don't want to lose that service.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Well if you stay on that tariff and not change sim cards or tariffs then you will be fine. They have already withdrawn Text Appeal plan months ago!!!But really to be honest, if you want something like this on Pay As You Go,then there are tariffs available.

Virgin Mobile Addict tariff:

Offers unlimited texts when you top up with £20,20p per call Voicemail,20p per minute calls to all networks and 15p per minute calls to 08 numbers. Plus Mobile internet costs a flat rate of 30p a day. T-Mobile charge you 40p per minute for calling 08 numbers and there is a minimum charge of 1 minute for all calls plus Mobile internet costs £1 a day.

Orange Dolphin Tariff:

Calls cost 20p to call all networks,Orange Answerphone costs 15p per minute, you get 300 free texts every month when you top up £10 in a month,600 free texts when you top up by £20 per month and unlimited texts when you top up with £30 or more. Mobile internet costs £1.50 per day.

Furthermore, 3 are offering good phones with Unlimited texts,Unlimited calls to 3 Mobiles and 200 minutes for calling other networks as well as Free Skype minutes all for just £20 per month. Visit three.co.uk for more info.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

But that's the point, I don't use my phone that much, I don't often call people, so I text most of the time. I spend about £10 every 2/3 months, so going on a monthly contract, or having to top up by £20/£30 would cost me more than I was originally spending.

I just want to know if there's another tariff that is pay as you go and 3p texts, or something similar?

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Slightly slow catching up on this one. You're half right - I used to work for Nortel in their GSM wireless division until November last year :).

By co-location I assume you're referring to the access network rather than core? Co-locating the access side is great for the operators costs and can help coverage (if the subscribers are lucky) but that'll be about as friendly as it gets. There's also the fact that they're likely to pick and choose which spots they co-locate to get the best benefits so I doubt it'll give the ideal result that we as paying customers would want to see :(. I wouldn't be surprised to find they push the limits of the capacity for any shared access points to get the maximum reduced costs so you might get better coverage but more chance of running in to problems at busy times.

If it helps, I think the Asda Mobile PayGo tariff carried by Vodafone runs at 4p/text.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

They're keeping their seperate core networks but co-locating the UMTS BTS equipment.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

This might be good for 3 customers and T mobile customers too... hopefully they dont merge with Orange though, aweful network.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

What is Orange thinking!

France Telecom the brand owners and network owners of 95% of the world have been in a financial mess for years, I doubt they would go ahead with the takeover of T-Mobile UK.

Furthermore, Orange home services formerly Freeserve and Wanadoo in the UK has been a flop due to slow development of its infrastructure and due to quad and tripple play providers.

Orange was to enter the pay-tv market and launch a similar service to BT Vision but that idea was thrown out of the window because it lost nearly 200,000 customers around the time and the cash flow dipped. Recently they launched Orange at home phone service, there are two levels of this,you can use it as a CPS service over a BT line or you can use the live box similar to BT's Homehub. I doubt this is catching on.

In Austrailia,Israel,India and a few other countries Hutchison Whampoa kept the Orange brand but leased it from France Telecom, they forced off 2G customers and when that was complete,they quit using the Orange brand and started using there own which inlcude '3' and 'Hutch'.

If 3 was to merge with T-Mobile, Hutchison will likely force everyone to upgrade there 2G phones to 3G or create a seperate customer base soley for 2G customers and call it Hutch or something. I doubt they will keep the T-Mobile brand. The whole process would take up to 5 years to complete.

One thing that Hutchison lacks in the UK and Europe is a fixed and Fibre optic telecoms infrastructure,in some parts of the world they have,but not here. In Hong Kong, Hutchison offer similar services to Virgin Media offering fibre optic cable internet to residential and business customers, they are of course ahead of the UK.

Why Hutchison sold Orange in the first place is just crazy! I mean it was a good brand and had a good 2G infrastructure,here in the UK, One2One now T-Mobile was Orange's direct competitor and was so behind Orange. perhaps they sold it off to make money to pay for 3G licences, Hutchison sold Orange in 1999 to Vodafone and then France Telecom took over in 2000 because of competition issues. Hutchison then began to build its 3G network in the UK and its 3G only network became active around November 2002,it was very undeveloped and had hardly any masts which is why nobody got reception! Now in 2009, the reception is much better although the network needs more masts in order for it to be a 100% 3G network as 3G signals dont travel as far. They have done well compared to One2one/T-Mobile which started in 1993 and only covered Greater London up until 1997 and then began to spread out, by 1999, it still had poor reception and even now T-Mobile's reception is just average outside London.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Rubbish. It depends where you are. Around here it's the strongest network.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Wrong. I haven't conducted extensive tests, but I've been to quite a few towns outside London, both in England and Wales. In the 3 and a half years I was with Tmobile, I rarely lost 2g reception (unless I was in a tunnel or really in the sticks). OK, outside London or other major towns, I didn't get good 3g reception, but I don't with O2 either.

This is more than I can say for any of my friends who have three.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

We get good 3 and 2g reception here and we are MILES (150-ish) away from London! And we aren't even classed as an urban area really... as opposed to my O2 3g connection which is crap and drops to edge/gprs alot.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

When originally set up, the Vodafone and O2 networks used GSM-900 (900 MHz) whilst Orange and T-Mobile used GSM-1800 (1800 MHz). I think that, nowadays, Vodafone and O2 also have some GSM-1800 nodes.

The signals at 900MHz, being at a lower frequency, will go round corners and penetrate into buildings better than those at 1800MHz. But coverage will still depend heavily on the number and location of base stations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_network
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_ranges

Links to coverage maps / calculators:
http://maps.vodafone.co.uk/coveragev...b/default.aspx
http://webmap.o2.co.uk/?Search=Search
http://coverage.orange.co.uk/uk/UKCoverageSearch.htm
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/c...eck/?ref=quick
http://www.three.co.uk/personal/help...age_/index.omp

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

I will never understand this misconception that T-Mobile supposedly have a poor signal compared to the other networks.

All comparison websites put all the networks at within a percent of each other when it comes to coverage. If ever T-Mobile come lowest then it's irrelevant to actual use as you are not going to notice a difference across the country of 1%.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Have you been down the south west such as Bristol,Devon and cornwall, it was a waste of time, and in portsmouth! My goodness! indoors it gave just one bar.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

It's not a misconception at all. The percentages you speak of are population coverage. It's reasonably easy to get up to 90% population coverage simply by rigging masts up in all the cities and towns. Getting to 95% is trickier and after that, you have to fight hard for every percentage point increase because all that's left are large areas where few people live (but not necessarily places where few people visit).

So in terms of land area covered, that 1% difference between T-Mobile and their nearest rival is rather larger than you might think.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

It's large but not to the point where people would notice a difference. More often than not people come to that conclusion because a few places in the 30-odd mile radius of where they live and work will have poor signal. Going on this alone they usually make an uneducated decision that T-mobile's coverage is 'weak' instead of 'weaker'.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Believe me, people around here would notice a difference. There isn't anywhere within 10 miles of here where you can get a reliable T-mobile signal. :D

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

It's the same for Orange down this way, you can't get a decent signal for love nor money. But for every area reporting network problems there'll be plenty of others that do fine.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Where I work I get no signal/limited service while inside the warehouse. Though outside i get 1 bar of signal, 2 if I'm lucky. As soon as I travel home, I get full signal.

Re: T Mobile to leave UK.
 

Stephen Carter (remember him?) has been pondering the problem:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05...p_meek_report/