The announcement of the merger of the two major mobile operators last month had generated a lot of interest, and recently consumer groups have raked up certain issues in this context and are demanding an investigation of the mobile market before implementing the merger.

Consumer Focus and the Communications Consumer Panel (CCP) have already sent a letter to the commissioner for competition in Brussels, placing their demand and requesting approval of the same. The main thrust is that the present state of the mobile market be ascertained before giving the green signal to the merger, as the UK mobile market will be affected the most due to the merger.

The fear is that lack of competition and innovation would adversely affect the 3G sector. T-mobile and Orange have substantial spectrum allocation among them, which will be transferred to the new company because of the merger, making it a company with a large spectrum allocation. This is unhealthy for any market following fair trade practices. This will affect the mobile virtual network operators who do not own any network but lease capacity from different network owners.

Further, there is a joint move made by the consumer groups to shift the decision making process about the merger back to the British authorities. If the control of investigation and the merger decision are passed on to the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission, the whole process of merger will be more transparent, feel the consumer groups.

Some industry watchers feel that this may delay the process of the merger, but people feel that this delay is quite justified in the present circumstances.

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Posted by admin on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 9:52 am.