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> European mobile firms join forces
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taken from
this BBC article
Together, the four firms will dwarf Vodafone
Four of Europe's biggest mobile phone firms have unveiled an alliance, in an attempt to wrest back the initiative from market leader Vodafone.
Germany's T-Mobile, France's Orange, Spain's Telefonica and Italian TIM began talks on cooperation last year.
Now, they have unveiled a joint brand - FreeMove - and promise to roll out shared services this year.
With 230 million subscribers worldwide, FreeMove hopes to offer a seamless service across all its member networks.
In addition, the firms hope to benefit from economies of scale, especially in purchasing handsets.
Getting together
FreeMove will initially focus mainly on the European business market, which it says is worth 4bn euros (£2.7bn; $4.9bn).
But it eventually plans to roll out services across its members' entire networks, including in the Americas.
The group has struck a deal with Motorola and Siemens to provide handsets: it has already bought 6 million phones at an average cost saving of 10%.
FreeMove is the second such alliance in the European mobile market, dwarfing a venture between nine firms including Britain's MMO2, Swiss-based Sunrise and Norway's Telenor.
A number of mobile operators have also pooled their efforts to invest in expensive third-generation network technology.
The idea of alliances has caught on quickest in the airline industry, being a cheap way for primarily national companies to extend their global service.
In mobile telecoms, the increasing demand for international roaming services have driven providers to work together more closely.
Competition hots up
The main spur for FreeMove, however, is the increasing domination of Vodafone, which alone has more than 130 million subscribers.
Although all four firms in FreeMove are active internationally, none has pushed its brand so aggressively into overseas markets as the British firm.
By offering a single standard of service across as many as 21 European countries, FreeMove will be able to offer its customers a highly competitive product.
And the venture plans to apply joint bulk purchasing to one-quarter of its overall procurement, resulting in potentially significant savings.
But analysts are sceptical that relatively loose alliances can be made to gel in strategic terms.
During the 1990s, a string of telecoms and hi-tech firms set up partnerships, but few lasted beyond the downturn earlier this decade.
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Posted: 2004-03-30 08:38:22
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Hmm... I wonder how well they will do
It could mean better roaming agreements and worldwide compatibility for things like MMS though
which would be a vast improvement over the current situation (MMS stored on website instead of being sent to phone abroad
)
Still... Vodafone has positioned itself remarkably well, they have excellent coverage in large parts of Europe and brand recognition is tremendous. Not an easy job to dethrone them
[edit] Although i would not mind Voda's prices going down... so bring on the competition!!
_________________
If at first you don't succeed,
look in the trash for the instructions.
[ This Message was edited by: Vlammetje on 2004-03-30 08:06 ]
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:05:43
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Even with this alliance breathing down its neck, vodafone wont be knocked off its pedestal.
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:09:39
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I have to agree regarding vodafone pricing, they do need to bring down their prices and indeed I though they were told last year or the year before to do so by the communications watchdog people.
Their coverage around europe is excellent and I was impressed to be able to make a call at the top of the Jungfrau when I went up there on that train from Interlaken a couple of years back
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:12:07
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You were on top of a young woman? :-)
I hope Vodafone will come to Serbia one day,services of current providers are pathetic.
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:15:33
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Does Vodafone provide services in Switzerland?
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:15:52
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yes, its called swisscom
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:17:55
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Did not know that swisscom is vodafone in disguise.
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:44:45
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they've introduced VF Live! to Switzerland
I believe it was a massive hit with lots of sign ups in the first week.
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Posted: 2004-03-30 09:57:18
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The live sticker on the swisscom handsets is a bit of a giveaway. How long before they change the name of Swisscom. In Ireland it took about a year before Vodabla changed Eircell's purple to red! On the pricing thing though they are expensive and as has been mentioned somewhere in another thread they do not provide the customer support you would expect.
Dave
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Posted: 2004-03-30 10:11:29
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