Is the marriage of convenience between T-Mobile UK and Orange a good thing for consumers or not?
Earlier in September it was announced that the UK operations of T-Mobile and Orange would merge to create a jointly-owned subsidiary. Now that the excitement (and hysteria) has calmed down a little, Teresa Cottam looks at what this really means for the UK mobile industry. We’ve known that something had to change in the UK mobile industry for some time, and the main player that needed that change was T-Mobile UK. Earlier this year there were rumours circulating that T-Mobile UK may try and buy market share, but when its parent made it clear it was not willing to pour in sufficient cash the rumour mill started speculating on potential buyers. At that time we pointed out that while 3 was partnered with T-Mobile it was an unlikely buyer. Thus the tie up with Orange may not have been entirely unexpected, but it bears all the hallmarks of a marriage of convenience. How easy the union will turn out to be remains to be seen. The two companies will share ownership of the new entity (let’s call
