BT’s Likely Acquisition of EE is the End of Orange and T-Mobile UK

Reports suggest that EE will move to completely phase out their Orange and T-Mobile brands in the United Kingdom ahead of BT’s acquisition, which is partly because the national incumbent has no plans to retain them. On top of that EE will stop selling separate 3G contracts and instead focus on 4G.

The move, which won’t impact existing customers who will of course continue to be supported on their current plans, is hardly surprising because both the Orange UK and T-Mobile websites have long since redirected new customers to EE’s products and so the removal of their remaining brands elsewhere is really just par for the course.

EE Statement (FT)

“The UK has a huge appetite for faster mobile internet. Responding to this demand, we will in the coming weeks focus exclusively on offering new and upgrading customers our great value range of 4G plans. EE will continue to serve customers on Orange and T-Mobile plans.”

Separately it was reported earlier this week that BT’s on-going due diligence process, which forms part of their exclusive acquisition talks, have so far uncovered no nasty surprises in EE’s books. This bodes well for a move towards a final complete agreement and after that it becomes a more uncertain matter of seeking regulatory approval.

In considering the issue the regulator will now also need to be mindful of Three UK’s move to gobble O2 from Telefonica, not to mention Vodafone’s planned return to the consumer fixed line broadband market. The Competition and Markets Authority and Ofcom clearly have a lot of tricky work ahead.