There was talk at one time of Three entering the German market not sure if that is still likely to happen anymore though know if they wanted to if the O2 Germany deals go ahead they would be given spectrum. Liberty Global was the other potential but they have since changed there minds.

I think they need to keep in the UK market as only other big market they are in is Italy. Obviously Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark they have a presence as well.

The really funny thing about all this is that me and Japaul were all on about this last year and everyone was saying it would never happen.

Except when it comes to when it supports your point of view. I have given you the reasoning for the valuation I suggested.

O2 Ireland sold for 800M with £544M of revenue, but O2 were very keen to dispose of assets and I suspect it went at a much lower price, due to the need by Telefonica to dispose of some assets in order to meet debt obligations. Hutchison previously offered £2BN to eircom and it was turned down. This is in the Irish market with a population of just 4.5M people.

We're in a 70M population country, talking about a company with revenues of 2BN of revenue selling a business with extensive assets and 8M customers (nearly double the whole population of Ireland in customers!)

£4-6BN is what I said, I see you chose to misquoted in the earlier post and picked the highest figure. You seem to constantly forget that the valuation of a business is not based on profit alone, the business itself and it's assets like spectrum is what values Three UK at 4 to 6 BN.

The only thing consistent with Wavejock is his inconsistency and 'one rule for me...one rule for you lot' approach.

It's utterly laughable that he lambasts somebody for posting a guessed valuation of Three UK, yet a couple of posts above, types a whole load of what can only be described as speculation and outright guesswork. For god's sake man, at least try and hold onto what small amount of credibility you have left around this place. Oh, and you can skip the 'this is another personalisation' post, because I've just done it for you.

Now I'll add my own guesswork if Wavejock permits it...

If there's one operator in the UK that will look to get out of it very soon, I believe that it will be Telefonica. They can service some of that horrendous debt mountain by selling off O2. Don't see why Hutchison wouldn't want to buy it, as long as they kept the networks separate until they drag O2's infrastructure kicking and screaming up to an acceptable standard. If HW are buying up telcos across Europe, why on earth would they want to exit the UK? They probably overestimated their growth a little (the recession probably saw to that), but the fact is things are going the right way in terms of operating profit and customer growth. As much as Wavejock will deny it, it's a fact that cannot be avoided.

He'll continue to beat them with the 4G stick, but as far as I can tell, they're still sticking to that end of 2015 date for 98% coverage, so who actually cares how they get there? Criticism ought to be reserved for if/when they miss that date, although I suspect all networks will miss their deadlines by a certain amount of time.

I actually hope HW get O2 UK, if only to make Wavejock cry into his Coco Pops, but I doubt he'll admit defeat even then.

I'm sure I'll get hit with the 'you're a Three apologist' tag, similar to what Jon Morris and the others get, but I very much speak as I find. I hold Three and EE in equally high regard in terms of their network performance and reliability as I've used both, and the only dividing factor of me choosing Three over EE right now is pricing.

I have no real loyalty beyond the fact they provide me with a good service when and where I need it for a good price. If circumstances change, I'll move to whoever offers me the best price for the same service.

But, as our very own Comical Ali thinks, nobody can possibly be happy on Three as they're a joke network apparently.

Sorry guys... Rant over!

He ignored my post on the previous page as well where I proved him wrong.
He's very quick to point out when others are wrong (when they're not)
But he has never ever managed to admit he's wrong himself despite me proving it on the last page.

I agree with what Enapace said previously. Not so sure how it will come about, but a 3 network solution is looking likely.

Just to come back on Wavejocks earlier posts about consolidation in the UK market. The IDC disagree with him, they say that "The UK mobile market can sustain more companies than other European nations"

http://www.cable.co.uk/news/bt-wont-...yst-700000042/

Interestingly the article also talks about BT not choosing to enter the consumer market with a a full rollout. They said they are launching a new consumer network next year, seemingly as a MVNO. They do some some plans to use the spectrum, I guess for wireless broadband from telegraph poles or something similar as discussed here before.