'Three' takeover of O2 would cost consumers €1,305 Million according to ComReg.

clohamon

In the run up to the license auctions Comreg attempted to provide some rational underpinning for the strategy they were adopting in the licensing process. If the number of operators increased from four to five there would be €907M of consumer surplus (in economic terminology) giving a total wefare gain of €206M - claimed ComReg. The source of this revelation was Antoine Augustine Cournot a 19th century mathematician that also dabbled in economics. As it turned out and as we now know there was no new entrant to the market and so the prediction became hypothetical.

Helpfully, the model also works the other way i.e. what happens if the number of operators falls from four to three., and ComReg, pedantic to a fault some would say, presented that case also. The consumer loss is €1,305,000,000

And here it is........(on the left)




So the question is, was ComReg's original analysis (p59) correct, and if so, are they sticking to it now that the predictions look less attractive?

watty

a) This is nonsense.
b) I'd rather see Vodafone or eircom take over Three & O2
c) Three have proved that the only thing they are good at is marketing data dongles and are able to pull the wool over the eyes of ASAI.
d) Presumably 02 (telefonica Ireland) would be purchased really with Chinese / Hong Kong money as Three (owned by HK Hutchinson Whampoa) has overall never made money here, too many data contracts subsidised by too few voice contracts.
e) ALL data the common contracts from all Mobile operators are too cheap, being cross subsidized by Voice, to the detriment of investment in real Broadband. When is Comreg and Competition folk going to address that? Roaming charges for Data are of course too high.

con777

one more snake coming to Ireland, will get monopolised network, will eat local networks and will be pumping irish money into China