Originally Posted by sdduk:
“If you remember when the mobile first came out over here in the 80s there was only 2 providers Cellnet and Vodafone then came Orange a year or so afterwards its gradually going back that way to 2 players all the others just hanging on for dear life.”
Not sure where you got that timeline from.
Cellnet and Vodafone were around in 1984/5, one2one launched September 1993, Orange April 1994, Virgin Mobile (one of the first virtual operators?) about 2000, Three in 2003.
Now there are stacks of virtual operators and I do wonder how some of them survive.
Virgin survived early on because of the deal it had done with T-Mobile that was quite bizarre; it got paid a fixed fee for every subscriber it had. Thus, Virgin were keen to give out SIM cards willy nilly and not cut them off even when it was obvious the SIM wasn't being used. That contract was eventually re-negotiated!
Now I assume Virgin makes the bulk of its money from mobile by offering SIM cards primarily to customers who take other Virgin Media services - and if you sign up with Virgin then I'm sure you'll get bombarded with invitations to get other Virgin Media services if you haven't already. Now it seems every network is assuming this is the future and the way to make money, not just selling a standard phone sub.