The O2 & Virgin merger – Enemies ahead?

The merger has complete and O2-UK have teamed up with its unlikely rival, Virgin Mobile (previously under control of EE/BT Group)

So now what?

“seamless broadband, entertainment and mobile services all in one place”O2-UK

Yea you read that one right. O2 have teamed up with Virgin Media to provide Broadband, Home phone and additional mobile packages. Joining with O2 has opened up so many doors to Virgin Media. The combined total of customers has now surpassed 47 million individual customers. Thats a crazy amount, not even taking into consideration that a lot of people have more than one mobile on contract!

Doesn’t this seem a bit familiar?

Yes, and for many reasons. Living in the UK you will more than likely have heard of Sky. If not, then let me introduce you.

Sky have been a landmark in Satellite TV and internet services for a long time. Originally starting off in towns to provide high priced but extremely fast internet and TV subscriptions with exclusive channels. They have also expanded into the mobile market in the past few years. So what does this have to do with O2 and Virgin Media?

The addition to O2’s artillery may cause havoc on the “Home Bundle” setups provided by Sky

Now, what can the O2 and Virgin merger actually bring to the table?

Considering this merger was valued at £31Billion, you would hope that this would create some “ruckus” in the market mainly dominated by Sky.

Virgin/O2 have pledged to create new deals making their services more budget friendly and suitable for people looking for the best value bundles around. This should make Sky shake in their thigh high boots. Sky have always been notorious for hiking prices to ridiculous highs mid contract with no easy escape.

The merger will create up to 2,000 permanent jobs, and 1,000 apprenticeship jobs by December 2021, a short space of time with a lot to fill.

Customers will eventually be merged together creating a unified system between the two companies. This will happen later down the line and work is already in progress creating such a system.

Hopefully Virgin do a better job this time around with O2 than they did several years ago with EE. From not notifing customer of contractual changes to replacing customers SIM cards to find out they were either locked to the old “Virgin Mobile” network that no longer existed or that the new SIM provided was DOA (this was a very common issue).

May the two businesses live in harmony together, and may they cause hellfire for Sky. As an O2 customer, I look forward to what this brings in the future for consumer and business uses.

The addition to O2’s artillery may cause havoc on the “Home Bundle” setups provided by Sky
Now, what can the O2 and Virgin merger actually bring to the table?

Considering this merger was valued at £31Billion, you would hope that this would create some “ruckus” in the market mainly dominated by Sky.

Virgin/O2 have pledged to create new deals making their services more budget friendly and suitable for people looking for the best value bundles around. This should make Sky shake in their thigh high boots. Sky have always been notorious for hiking prices to ridiculous highs mid contract with no easy escape.

The merger will create up to 2,000 permanent jobs, and 1,000 apprenticeship jobs by December 2021, a short space of time with a lot to fill.

Customers will eventually be merged together creating a unified system between the two companies. This will happen later down the line and work is already in progress creating such a system.

Hopefully Virgin do a better job this time around with O2 than they did several years ago with EE. From not notifing customer of contractual changes to replacing customers SIM cards to find out they were either locked to the old “Virgin Mobile” network that no longer existed or that the new SIM provided was DOA (this was a very common issue).

May the two businesses live in harmony together, and may they cause hellfire for Sky. As an O2 customer, I look forward to what this brings in the future for consumer and business uses.