Blue Shirt Guy
Regular Member
Which one is the viable competitor to EE?
Vodafone or Three UK?
Both. I need conference calling and call merge as a network feature (I rely on it several times a week) and EE are the only network that don't support it. Therefore I use Vodafone and 3 for my phones. Vodafone and Three currently compete against each other but if they merge there will be no competition at all for this service.
Somehow Three can do call merge even for prepay customers as can Lebara (who use Vodafone) but EE can't provide it even if you're a large corporate customer with 10000+ devices (I have asked). If Three and Vodafone merge there are no other prepay options on other networks with HD calling that support it that I'm aware of (no prepay services on O2 offer it and EE can't do it at all, Lyca might via their own IMS but that's not HD and probably the less said about them the better as no sane person would use them).
If EE wanted to provide a basic service their customers are asking for and which they used to provide (check their forums) then I'm sure they could, but they don't. In fact they've actively removed it and don't care, so less competition is not going to encourage them to invest in a better network and removing the only usable competitor for the service I and others need* is not going to make that service cheaper or available on prepay, as anyone with even basic understanding of economics can confirm.
*Conference calling and call merge is used for disabled audio assist services as well as making life easier for those of us with relatives that need it, apart from it's normal uses. It's also used by some of our support staff to add an interpreter to international calls. That may be a small subset of customers, but it's an important one. EE ignoring that when they know it's an issue tells you all you need to know about what they care about which is NOT the quality of their service but just how little they can provide for as high a price as possible**.
**See also speed limitations and in-contract price rises.
Edit: I'm aware this has turned into a rant about EE and conference calling but this is a very sore point as this was a service I used for years on Orange until they got borked by EE and anyone who suggests EE are a serious competitor to the other networks for a lot of customers needs their head examined. Some of use still rely on the "phone" part of a phone.
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