In anticipation of T-Mobile’s first quarter results this week, rumours are rife that the UK arm of German company Deutsche Telekom will have to be sold, or at least merged, to survive.

Losses for the company, estimated to be worth £3.2 billion, are expected to go into the billions this week with estimates settling around the £1.6 billion mark.

It has been reported that Deutsche Telekom’s shareholders, the German government and private equity group Blackstone, are putting pressure on the company to get rid of T-Mobile as it is bringing its profits down.

The most likely outcome seems to be a merger with mobile firm 3, according to reports. The two companies have worked together since 2007 with 3G base stations across the country so to grow this partnership would seem logical.

Also Timotheus Hoettges, chief financial officer at T-Mobile, said on Friday: “The British market is highly competitive and has comparably low margins. In our view consolidation is a means to take excess capabilities out of the market. Nothing is unthinkable on our side.”

Unthinkable, however, could also mean rumours of selling to one of the other top providers such as Orange move from fiction to fact.

When approached for information by IT PRO on the acquisition and merger rumours currently circulating, T-Mobile declined to comment.

T-Mobile is not the first mobile phone company to suffer this quarter with recent reports from IDC and Strategic Analytics that the industry has seen its worst shipping figures since it began 27 years ago. 

Article taken from: 3 Mobile Broadband 

BT will take over as Wi-Fi operator at Starbucks coffee shops in the UK and Ireland, with T-Mobile losing out on revenue from more than 650 hotspots.

Announcing the deal today, BT said it will begin to install service in some stores this week, with rollout scheduled to be completed by the end of summer. The deal is for five years.

T-Mobile has operated Starbucks hotspots for the last 6 years on a subscription or pay as you go basis.

A spokesman for the mobile firm told The Register it now intends to focus on improving its mobile broadband network. Wi-Fi will remain as a “complementary” service in high demand areas such as airports.

BT’s Starbucks hotspots will form part of its Openzone network. BT’s home broadband packages include bundled Openzone minutes.

An existing public Wi-Fi deal with O2 means iPhone users will also get access at Starbucks, at faster speeds than offered by 3G. From summer this year, O2 dongle subscribers will also get bundled Openzone access.

While mobile operator rivals have seen rapid growth in mobile data use from by smartphone and dongle owners, BT has sought to expand its Wi-Fi coverage.

Following a setback last year, when it failed to agree commercial terms to continue a deal with The Cloud, it controversially enabled all its business broadbands routers as Openzone hotspots via a software update. Businesses who did not want their bandwidth to form part of the network were required to opt out. 

Article from: 3 Mobile Broadband