News

On 1 March, the European Commission decided to allow the merger of France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom wireless operations in the UK.



The Commission imposed a limitation requiring the companies to make a change to a network sharing agreement with one of the UK's smallest operators, 3. The deal will require divesting a quarter of the combined spectrum of the two merging companies in the 1,800MHz band, one of three frequency bands used for cellphones in the UK.



As a result of this limitation, the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has withdrawn its request for the UK Competition Authorities to review the merger.



The merger is expected to complete in the next couple of months. Speculation continues regarding the details of the merged entity's operations, continuation of the two brands and job losses. The new company will have 19,000 employees - over 50% more than Telefonica's O2. Some estimate job losses at around 4,000, although the company's leaders are denying these figures.