Euro consumers have TOO MUCH choice – telco operators Three or four market players is plenty, at least according to the GSMA, the association that represents nearly 800 mobile operators. At an event in Brussels this week, GSMA director Anne Bouverot said it was ridiculous that there were nearly 100 players in the EU market while the US does perfectly well with four or five. In …
Yeah 4 or 5 is plenty of choice for all of the US, except most people I've spoken to have effectively said they have no choice, because their area isn't in a city they get signal from a single operator and that's about it, same with their phone, cable, TV etc. Limiting the market to 4 or 5 players effectively means no choice and many operators saying "Don't like our service? Fine go somewhere lse... OH WAIT YOU CAN'T!" followed by some kind of evil laughter.
Although I agree 800 is probably a bit too many, but I imagine a large portion of those 800 are resellers, like giffgaff or tesco mobile etc.
I think that the GSMA meant to say that CARRIERS do just fine in the U.S. with 4-5 competitors in the market. There are a few more if you just want personal/family service, but if you use your phone for business then you probably want AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile.
"...but if you use your phone for business then you probably want AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile."
Uh, not sure if you're in the U.S.A. like me, but those are the ONLY providers. I'm with "Ting" mobile right now, which actually operates off Sprint's network...see how that works? Check this out, even though I'm with Ting who is using Sprint (3rd party style), if Sprint decides to have a show down/dual with Verizon, then I feel that just the same as a OEM Sprint user. Even though my costs are a little lower in dollars, the percentage is still the same even though I'm with Ting. So a thousand names for only 4 operators
And yes, I CANNOT use any other mobile service outside of those 4, and for "Land Line" inet, I'm stuck with Time Warner, because there is no other operators here. They literally lock them out, to lock you in! So I have 5 over priced services to choose from...hmm, I'm fucked.
United States of Business.
All that being said, if we really had 800, they surely would eat themselves eventually. But, I'd rather have 800 eating themselves than 5 eating me!
Operators argue that it could become impossible to remain viable if they are not able to pool resources with partners or rivals.
which surely shows that the business models for many of the operators is flakey? They want to cherry-pick the lucrative parts of the market, while pushing the cost of the other parts onto "somebody else". It's the model used by most of the MVNOs, and they can't all get the cherries while leaving the uninteresting cake to someone else. Maybe 4 or 5 operators is too few, but is 800+ really practical?
Just look at the state of things in the USA. We don't want such a small number of operators, we need true competition.
OR
We need legislation to ensure that the networks are open to all comers and that it remains possible to a new player to enter should incumbents try to gouge customers.
.... in push for less snouts in trough shock.
MMMM Bacon -------------------------------------------------------------- >
You can bet that :
a) the GSMA doesn't represent all those 800 players equally, if at all in some cases.
b) That each of the 800 would consider themselves as being essential in a rationalised market.
I've been dealing with plenty of US users of broadband both commercial and private over the past few month, always heard the broadband was bad due to monopolies, frankly its amazing how bad it is. We had companies who expected their broadband to go down if the weather was bad, not remote companies mind you, places in shopping malls in relatively large urban areas, less than 1Mbps connections etc..
that is always complaining about carrier lock-in, lack of handset choice on certain networks, SIM locked phones and large bills?
Think I'll stay with my choice of hundreds, buying an unlocked phone and sticking in whichever damned SIM I bloody well want! And paying less than a tenner a month for the privilege.
I must admit that, whenever I go into a European mobile phone emporium — obviously as seldom as possible — and see the baroque workflow invoked for even the simplest operation, it seems to me that a) there's too much money in this game; and b) that efficiencies should be possible. But I don't think that reducing the number of operators is the way to obtain them. Probably rather the reverse: "We don't care, we don't have to…we're the phone company." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHgUN_95UAw&spfreload=10)
So she thinks 'GSMA director Anne Bouverot said it was ridiculous that there were nearly 100 players in the EU market while the US does perfectly well with four or five.' Well, I have a plan. She needs to come over here and use the system until she screams in utter frustration. And, she needs to spend at least 7 hours per day with tech support. Beer? Beer helps, but not enough.
The tiny population of Lithuania, for example, has a choice of three operators. This limits the amount these operators can invest in new products and services. This is exacerbated by the cost base of the economy (earnings are low, compared to major players in Europe). With a population the size of the UK, France or Germany OTOH, the more competition the better.
T-mobile's coverage and use of weird bands that are incompatible with everyone else makes them a non-starter unless you never venture out of large cities. Sprint's bizarre fascination with the wrong technology at every turn always leaves them investing in working around this missteps and playing catch-up with the big boys.
There's really only AT&T and Verizon, and that's no choice because neither one wants to truly compete with the other. They're happy to keep prices high and rake in profits, and let Sprint, T-mobile and the little guys like US Cellular and regional carriers fight it out for the cheapskates.
The reason why someone in the industry would look to the US as the model they want to emulate is they look at the prices we're paying AT&T and Verizon and they could only dream of raping you Euros in like manner!
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