I only just noticed and felt like making a jokey post. Took me a while to dream up such a collection of words .

Today's Times:-

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Whenever Hong Kong cartoonists want to depict the city�s most powerful tycoon, they show Li Ka-shing in blue spandex, red cape and external underpants (Leo Lewis writes). On the comparatively rare occasions that an investment appears to have floundered, the cape droops. Overwhelmingly, though, he is shown as a soaring, invincible streak on the skyline.

For more than two decades, Asia�s richest man has been known simply as �Superman�, celebrated in a city that worships the arts of wealth creation and investment for his uncanny ability to back a winner.
Between his two main companies, Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong, he owns significant tracts of Hong Kong, has a huge stake in its electricity supply and holds the world�s most powerful positions in container port management and health and beauty retail, including Britain�s Superdrug. When he has ventured away from bricks and mortar, his astonishing luck has held: he was an early investor Facebook, Siri and Skype long before they were worth billions.

The �rags to riches� clich� was rarely so apt. When he was just 12 his family fled southern China to escape Japanese bombs; two years later his father, a teacher, died suddenly from tuberculosis. Mr Li sold his dead father�s clothes for cash to feed the family. Without finishing school, he worked in a factory making watch-straps. Seven years later, he started a company that made plastic flowers for sale to Europe, just as demand began to surge.

As his wealth grew, he invested in property, factories and, ultimately, in Hutchison, at that time a fading British trading house. Future investments would include oil, ports and infrastructure. The 86-year-old is now worth $33 billion.

The Times - Sat, 24 Jan 2015

A smart operator! But the inside story could be interesting.

I wouldn't think Giffgaff's speeds would mix well with three's customer perception of high speeds (in my research), Although giffgaff is slow largely because O2 is, so merging with 3 could improve this. However, out of BT EE and Vodafone, the O2 3 will still have the least spectrum, so I'm not holding my breath.

In reference to www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2924738/Sky-seeks-holy-gra...:

Sky seeks 'holy grail' with own mobile service: Broadcaster may join new £10bn merged giant to offer total package

There's also talk that Vodafone might buy VM Cable from Liberty Media, *or Sky!!!*, as they will otherwise become the smallest operator in the UK - their home market.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 25-Jan-15 00:37:30)

Is there s definitive list of spectrum allocation per network?

This is my concern: Three and O2 combined will be come the largest network. But they will have the lease spectrum with non-continuous chunks. I.E they will have multiple 10Mhz chunks for 4G but might not able to turn these into 20Mhz chunks to improve capacity.

I think BT buying EE means that Relish should start to ramp up deployment to compete. Because if BT offer a Relish like service on 2600Mhz as do it nation wide then Relish will loose out.

I can't see it being long before Vodafone is bought. Perhaps by either Three, BT or Virgin Media (Liberty Global). Actually maybe PCCW, Relish's owner should buy Vodafone... that could be interesting for the market.

Details at The Register

Vodafone bought? I don't think that will happen.

63 Billion

I fail to see how this can work on paper...

3 and EE have a RAN share (MBNL) for the 3G part of each network. They have recently-ish agreed to allow a 4G site (not RAN) share.

O2 and VF have a RAN share (Cornerstone) for the respective 2G and 3G network (dont know if this extends to 4G)

For either 3 or O2 to to divest either of those agreements will significantly impact the respective network, aka a really really bad idea!!

Access to O2's 2G spectrum will benefits 3 users and access to the 3 3G network will benefit O2 users for data. This would only be a shared PLMN which is not as a smooth as it could be, hence Orange & T-Mobile moving from a shared PLMN to a single PLMN code for EE and both carriers underneath.

They have no benefits to derive from contiguous spectrum, neither operator has a fixed carrier, with VF buying C and W and the BT/EE marriage they will be left to the side for backhaul.