Circumstances Force 3UK to Cut Prices
3 UK that is at present the minnow among the mobile broadband networks in the United Kingdom, seems to be deeply intimidated recently following the historic announcement of their merging plans by UK mobile broadband operators Orange UK and T-Mobile.
This intimidating partnership for the other three mobile operators in the UK, once realised could give life to arguably the largest mobile broadband network in the country. Even under the prevailing conditions, 3 UK is the smallest among the five with a very less market share.
Once the deal between T-Mobile and Orange is struck, the number of operators in the country will be reduced to four. Something that will be certainly worrying 3 UK will be the reality that O2 and Vodafone are already miles ahead of it in terms of market share, and the Orange-T-Mobile deal is expected to worsen things for them by virtually obliterating its minute chances for engaging in a healthy competition.
This is more than evident in the words of 3 UK’s chief executive Kevin Russel that although he supported the merger, he liked to see more reforms from the regulator that would enable his company to atract new customers by offering reduced prices to them. He had revealed his views to the newspaper the Financial Times.
Russel wanted the competition authorities to allow his company to go ahead with lowered prices to entice fresh customers, if they gave their nod for the proposed merger between T-Mobile and Orange UK. He also expected the authorities to consider cutting the connection costs between the mobile operators that existed at present, to almost zero.
3 UK had, at the beginning of the year, launched a mobile broadband package highlighting 15GB data allowance for GBP 15 per month, with a view to give itself a competitive edge in the UK mobile broadband market. The operator had also launched limited contract term dongles in March to win more customers.
