Auditel Consultant:
Nigel Collins

T-Mobile and Orange in UK merger

15 Sep 2009 | Filed under: Telecommunications

It was reported last week that T-Mobile and Orange plan to merge their UK businesses, creating a mobile phone giant with 28.4 million customers.

The BBC website reported:

UK mobile phone operators would welcome consolidation in the sector said lawyer Chris Watson, of CMS McKenna, adding firms saw the current levels of competition as “ruinous” because of how low they had to keep prices to win customers.

There was very little prospect of the deal being approved by regulators without some alterations, he added, and said “alarm bells will be ringing” about price increases.

Customers on existing contracts would not see their tariffs changed, he said.

“But when your contract comes up for renewal you may well find the price is more expensive.”

The problem that a lot of companies have is in not having the expertise to properly analyse their best option when a mobile contract comes up for renewal. Auditel have a number of analysis tools at their disposal which can cut through the sales gloss and project the real costs and potential savings.

The full BBC article can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8243226.stm