Is UK heading towards merger era?

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: European Union has given its blessing to the most talked about deal of the season and the celebration will soon begin with the consummation of the proposed merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK. The telecom sector of UK is vital and highly competitive and the main players have always and loudly protested their support of the benefits of competition.

But with the finalization of the proposed merger, the big five have come down to big four. The current market leader in UK, O2 will be pushed a place down the hierarchy. Vodafone will go further down the order and will be casting around for some way to bolster its fortunes. All these mobile operators will try to cope up with the new and a powerful competition in the form of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK merger and by “competition” they all will mean merging themselves.

Though O2 will not be allowed to merge with Vodafone as the regulators in the UK and in Europe would not allow it too but the two can share their networks on a full fledged way.

The merger is paving the way towards a new trend of merger and collaboration of the entities that have control of two huge networks running the sector by themselves. The new trend will also provide access and services to a variety of MVNOs.

Until and unless a line is drawn by the regulator between the big two, the end user will be disadvantaged by the consolidation.