The UK's smallest mobile operator, 3, has called for
regulatory reforms that will enable its business to grow in the
face of consolidation of the UK mobile telecoms market.
Last week France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom announced plans to
merge their UK mobile businesses Orange and T-Mobile to form a new
market leader.
This will reduce the number of UK mobile operators to four, but
the new merged company, Vodafone and O2 will all be much larger
than 3.
Kevin Russell, chief executive of
3 UK, said he supports the merger, but called for reforms that
will enable 3 to grow its business by cutting prices to end users,
according to the
Financial Times.
If the competition authorities approve the proposed merger
between Orange UK and T-Mobile UK, they should allow 3 to attract
customers by offering lower prices, he said.
Russell said the competition authorities should consider cutting
to nearly zero the charges for mobile operators to connect to each
others' networks.
They should also ensure that, within 18 months, consumers can
shift their mobile phone number to another operator within two
hours instead of two days.
Earlier this year, 3 launched a
mobile package offering 15 Gbytes of data for £15 a month in a
bid to create a competitive advantage in the mobile broadband
market.
Also in March, 3 gave away mobile broadband dongles for a
limited time period in an attempt to win more mobile broadband
customers.