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Telefonica looking in to putting O2 up for sale or floating it |
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#1 |
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: In the future....
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Telefonica looking in to putting O2 up for sale or floating it
Telefonica are looking into the possibility of selling or floating O2 to reduce their £41 Billion debt pile. A decision will be taken in the coming weeks. As Wavejock used to say O2 is the jewel in the crown of Telefonica
![]() Sales at O2 UK fell by 8.9 per cent to €3.46bn (£2.9bn) for the first half of the year, as customers opted to hang on to their old handsets rather than upgrade. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09...t_o2_for_sale/ |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
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Not good news for carriers, but it IS nice to hear that people are hanging on to handsets for longer. For most people there's little need to upgrade if you buy the right device to begin with.
SIM only FTW! |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 9,209
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Quote:
Not good news for carriers, but it IS nice to hear that people are hanging on to handsets for longer. For most people there's little need to upgrade if you buy the right device to begin with.
SIM only FTW! |
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#4 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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There is little point upgrading from your 6310i if you are on O2 anyway as you'll have 2G only for most of the UK.
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#5 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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Not in my experience.
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#6 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
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I see 4G in plenty of places now, but O2 is still a network that often gives me 'network communication issues' when doing speed tests.
By and large, the improvement over the last two years has been significant. |
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#7 |
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Join Date: Apr 2014
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Quote:
Not good news for carriers, but it IS nice to hear that people are hanging on to handsets for longer. For most people there's little need to upgrade if you buy the right device to begin with.
SIM only FTW! Article about replacing phones. Sony leading the way on battery charging. |
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#8 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,377
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It was a little tongue in cheek but still valid I think for a whole lot of people. I appreciate that things are now moving fast and about time. Just bought my boy an O2 (Tesco) Nokia 130 as he starts big school this week and as I was walking him out to the bus had to use it to call home and say I had forgotten to make packed lunch for middle son as my psh, brand new EE iPhone SE showed No Service.
Come on EE. Where is this 800? Might need a 130 on O2 myself for emergencies. Bah. |
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#9 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
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Quote:
I can well believe that in a year or so from now, Sony will reluctantly jump on the bandwagon for faster charging. Sony also didn't get very far when it put a 4K screen on a phone. But at least that was a separate phone so you had the choice. |
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#10 |
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Ely (CB6 - Sandy Heath TX)
Posts: 1,622
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Quote:
There is little point upgrading from your 6310i if you are on O2 anyway as you'll have 2G only for most of the UK.
As an O2 customer, i must say I was close to ditching, but their network upgrades seems to be going rather well. Coverage and speeds have increased significantly over the last 12 months, to a point where I'm now more than happy. Very often I now get even better coverage (signal strength and speed) than on my work EE device. Granted coverage may still be poor in some areas, i do think these general blanket statements are harsh. |
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#11 |
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: North West
Posts: 4,884
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I'm not trying to be wavejack here, but are these people still slating O2 left right and centre even O2 customers now?
As an O2 customer, i must say I was close to ditching, but their network upgrades seems to be going rather well. Coverage and speeds have increased significantly over the last 12 months, to a point where I'm now more than happy. Very often I now get even better coverage (signal strength and speed) than on my work EE device. Granted coverage may still be poor in some areas, i do think these general blanket statements are harsh. Vodafone has improved immeasurably in the areas I frequent, that said they are having problems with 4G in my area at the moment. I think the key thing in respect of O2 and VF is they are noticeably improving, where as the relative minnow in the market sadly isn't (comparatively). The end of 2017 should mean the big three networks are broadly parallel and coverage should be the same in most places. |
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#12 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,377
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Quote:
I'm not trying to be wavejack here, but are these people still slating O2 left right and centre even O2 customers now?
As an O2 customer, i must say I was close to ditching, but their network upgrades seems to be going rather well. Coverage and speeds have increased significantly over the last 12 months, to a point where I'm now more than happy. Very often I now get even better coverage (signal strength and speed) than on my work EE device. Granted coverage may still be poor in some areas, i do think these general blanket statements are harsh. I agree that the end of 2017 and into 2018 will show a more general 4G covering for all networks as VO2 are putting in the effort finally. |
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#13 |
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Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Rutland
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Certainly down here in the South West it's still pretty bad. O2 state more 3G coverage but it's 3G900 and simply doesn't work for data. It just doesn't. But it looks pretty on the map.
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#14 |
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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I agree the West coast (VF area) isn't great but it's a different story all together in the North East and East of the country in general - continuous 4G in most towns and villages as well as the A1 and East Coast Main Line.. A great improvement on this time last year.
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#15 |
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Cheshire/Shropshire Border
Posts: 590
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Quote:
I'm not trying to be wavejack here, but are these people still slating O2 left right and centre even O2 customers now?
As an O2 customer, i must say I was close to ditching, but their network upgrades seems to be going rather well. Coverage and speeds have increased significantly over the last 12 months, to a point where I'm now more than happy. Very often I now get even better coverage (signal strength and speed) than on my work EE device. Granted coverage may still be poor in some areas, i do think these general blanket statements are harsh. |
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#16 |
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Cheshire/Shropshire Border
Posts: 590
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Quote:
I agree the West coast (VF area) isn't great but it's a different story all together in the North East and East of the country in general - continuous 4G in most towns and villages as well as the A1 and East Coast Main Line.. A great improvement on this time last year.
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#17 |
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: East Midlands
Posts: 3,840
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Be interesting to see if Hutchison have another go, this time trying the same model they used in Italy with Wind Italia in allowing a new entrant into the market ( there fore keeping four operators )
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#18 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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Who is big enough to buy O2 though, the number of potential companies with £9BN in the bank who have the experience to enter such a highly regulated and specialist market are small. You could count them on your fingers, and then you have to rule out the ones who can't buy it for competition reasons.
China mobile only operates in Asia, Vodafone can't as they are already in the market, Airtel possible, but unlikely, Telenor unlikely I wonder if Orange (France Telecom) or T-mobile Deutsche Telekom would now they've sold EE to BT? Virgin Media too big now Liberty surely, Sky unlikely there would be too much fuss. They are going to struggle to find buyers I think. |
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#19 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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Liberty Global (Virgin Media, UPC etc) might if they can't get someone like Vodafone. Or Sky, of course
I don't think LG will have much of a competition issue - sure, there's Virgin Mobile, but that's just an MVNO (albeit a large one) |
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#20 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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True I guess, I'm bitter that the whole communications market isn't taken into consideration properly when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. I think it is extremely important what other communications companies are owned by a potential buyer or in a merger, and that the market as a whole should be assessed, not just mobile. Products are cross sold, linked, multi-played and mobile relies on fixed line integration, backhaul etc. all areas where market manipulation can happen and conflict of interests for companies vs doing what's best for the consumer.
However that seems a minority view here, I appreciate that. |
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#21 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 587
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Quote:
Who is big enough to buy O2 though, the number of potential companies with £9BN in the bank who have the experience to enter such a highly regulated and specialist market are small. You could count them on your fingers, and then you have to rule out the ones who can't buy it for competition reasons.
China mobile only operates in Asia, Vodafone can't as they are already in the market, Airtel possible, but unlikely, Telenor unlikely I wonder if Orange (France Telecom) or T-mobile Deutsche Telekom would now they've sold EE to BT? Virgin Media too big now Liberty surely, Sky unlikely there would be too much fuss. They are going to struggle to find buyers I think. |
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#22 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,546
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It could happen!
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#23 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,546
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Quote:
I'm not trying to be wavejack here, but are these people still slating O2 left right and centre even O2 customers now?
As an O2 customer, i must say I was close to ditching, but their network upgrades seems to be going rather well. Coverage and speeds have increased significantly over the last 12 months, to a point where I'm now more than happy. Very often I now get even better coverage (signal strength and speed) than on my work EE device. Granted coverage may still be poor in some areas, i do think these general blanket statements are harsh. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09...etrics_survey/ Quote:
O2 came fourth in the overall rankings, behind Vodafone, finishing last for speed, data speed, call and text performance, and it duly earns a telling-off for not investing in LTE:
The gaps in the scoring between O2’s performances and those of the leaders in the holistic categories of overall performance, network reliability, and network speed in each nation were generally wide and remained relatively consistent across both second-half 2015 testing and first-half 2016 testing, suggesting that O2 simply doesn’t yet have a widespread 4G footprint beyond metro areas. |
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#24 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2,876
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The problem as always, is that these studies don't take into account every location.
It's great that EE have the best network but I have to use WiFi calling at home. Vodafone and O2 I can use the cellular network. |
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#25 |
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Join Date: Oct 2012
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Vodafone / O2 have an advantage in 900 MHz 2G/3G It might not be fast but it works where 1800/2100/2600 MHz doesn't reach. Only when 800 MHz is widely deployed for voice will this change. Quote:
The problem as always, is that these studies don't take into account every location.
It's great that EE have the best network but I have to use WiFi calling at home. Vodafone and O2 I can use the cellular network. |
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