Originally Posted by Thine Wonk:
“A while, but this one is going to take longer as the competition concerns are bigger. I would say March 2016 and we'll be at the stage where roaming might be enabled cross network and we'll start to see the networks come together.
Hutchison say they'll keep both Cornerstone / O2's network and Three MBNL live too, although they will almost certainly pool the transmission and allow cross network access. ”
I think in respect of this development your presumptions are accurate. This potential tie up has far more implications than the BT/EE deal. If both providers were sharing the same infrastructure it would be relatively straightforward, but they aren't. I don't think cross network roaming would be enabled until about 18-24mths of the merger completion date. EE took its time with the Orange/T-Mobile network roaming, so I don't think the rollout will be any faster.
There are a lot of invested parties to this deal, Vodafone and EE/BT will alomst certainly try to sabotage this tie up. OFCOM, CMA, Government will also be looking at this both from revenue concerns (from spectrum licensing) and also competition. That's before it gets to the European Commission who will almost certainly have a word or two to say about it. My only concern is whether UK authorities show opposition in addition to the other networks, and the EC tramples all over them.
The killer is that 41% market share, they already handed one provider a monopoly position, I just can't fathom why this merger would be allowed to proceed. The reduction to possibly 3 operators has been done in other markets in the EU, however the end result has always been that each MNO are broadly similar in size (by customers and revenue). There is a lot more to it, I should think this deal will suffer more scrutiny than the BT/EE merger.