Mobile Merger

[andrewducker]

Orange are merging with T-Mobile.

I'm with Orange.

Anyone know what T-Mobile's customer service is like and whether I should be worried?

Comments

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

pretty OK - call centre in Sunderland is great

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I've never had a problem with them, but have never had the need to contact them for anything more complex than an upgrade.

You have a whilte to wait before anything will happen. It is not certain the competition commission will approve this deal and even if they do, Orange say the brands will remain seperate for at least 18 months.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

They used to have a bad habit of sending SMS spam, and ignoring requests to not do so. I don't know if they still do, because that's why I switched to Orange. The only reason I'm not still on Orange is because of the iPhone.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

T-mobile spam their customers a lot with ads. Or they did, last time I had any dealings with them (3 years ago).

I gather T-Mobile are in trouble Europe-wide, though, so this is more a case of Orange taking over T-Mobile than of an actual merger. Right? In which case, what comes up on top should end up smelling of oranges ...

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

T-mobile spam their customers a lot with ads.

That might depend on the contract one has with them. I have a pay-as-you-go account, and all I ever receive are exhortations to Top-Up Friday. (I also have a rather antique phone, which might be why I never rceeive anything else.)

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Even the Top-Up Friday ones seem to have stopped for me! My phone's fairly up to date (i.e. no one mocks when I bring it out...).

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Earnings have been down across the telecoms sector in the past year or so. T-mobile is the European operation of Deutsche Telekom while Orange is the European operation of France Télécom. I'm not sure if this merger is proposed Europewide or just in the UK.

There are obvious savings to be made by merging, but after the huge expense of building their seperate networks, the savings to be had from reducing operating overheads must be relatively small. I wonder if a mobile network can be sold to a potential new operator? All the towers etc. are in place after all.

Still there must be savings to be made, I remember T-mobile attempted to buy O2 a few years ago but were outbid by Telffonica.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Erin gets the occasional text from T-Mobile telling her stuff. Not overly spammy though.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I'm on PAYG T-Mobile but as I only spend #5 a month I don't really have a lot of dealings with them. The spam texts have actually lessened in recent months, though I never figured out why I signed up to a 'four months of 25 free texts a month' and then only got one month. At one point when they sent quite a few texts (by accident, they claimed) they gave everyone a pound of credit - which is like LJ giving three days of free account time for an outage, i.e. not much but still a nice gesture.

I'll be keeping an eye on it, but as long as I can have a cheap texting plan, I don't expect my mobile experience to change in any noticeable way. And AD keeps promising me the iPhone when his contract ends, so I might jump ship anyway.

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

I'm on contact with T-Mobile, have been for years, like their service and have never received a spam-text in my life.

This has been a drive-by commenting from someone you don't know who's bored and surfing their friendsfriends list.

[andrewducker]

Very happy to have drive by commenting :->

[ishkhara.livejournal.com]

I'm PAYG T-Mobile and I've never had a problem with them. When my phone was stolen they were really helpful and blocked the number straight away. Whenever I've had any dealings with them they've been great. :)

I've certainly never had the spam some people have mentioned - you can opt out of any texts they send you, so apart from the occassional Top Up Friday text I don't get any.

[lebeautemps.livejournal.com]

Mmm. We use Orange, Voda and T Mobile here for various reasons and I absolutely hate Orange (PAYG), but am pleased with T Mobile (contract) whenever we have cause to call them up. We're hoping this means that T Mobile people will get the increased coverage (like Cornwall) and that Orange will be forced to grow up a tad when it comes to customer services for PAYG.

Voda have yet to impress me.

[andrewducker]

I have Orange Premier phone support, which I'm very happy with. It doesn't surprise me that PAYG support is...less good.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I haven't been with T-mobile for about six years now, but their customer service was excellent then. I only moved because I became eligible for a work phone with £20 of free calls per month, which was too good to refuse.

[cdave]

They never managed to fix an issue I had where I couldn't connect to https sites on my phone. In the process they (accidentally and silently ) blocked me from receiving text messages which took another 48 hours to resolve.

Not impressed.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

They are? Huh. I'm with Orange, too. Hadn't heard anything, though. What changes will there be, do you know?

My dad's on T-mobile and loves them, not least because he can use phones in both the US and UK (which is why he's with them, he got tired of having to make different arrangements when he came to visit me out here).

[andrewducker]

It was all over the tech sites this morning :->

[giantbedsprings.livejournal.com]

I had a few issues joining T-Mobile, but that had more to do with incompetence of the salesperson rather then anything else.