BT and EE merger.

[busestrains]

I have just spoken with someone at BT who has told me that during 2023 they are going to abolish the BT brand and merge everything in to the EE brand. Currently both BT and EE provide broadband and mobile so it makes sense to merge in to one brand. However i would have used BT and got rid of the EE brand. BT is such a well known name that has been around for decades and decades. It has been known under that name for at least fourty years. EE on the other hand is a much less known name that has been around for only less than ten years. In fact pretty much everyone knows that BT means British Telecommunications but practically nobody could tell you what EE means. So i think this is a big mistake and they should have done the opposite and gotten rid of the EE brand and used the BT brand for everything. I also wonder whether Plusnet will be abolished too. I would be interested to hear others thoughts on this merger.

 

[GusB]

I have just spoken with someone at BT who has told me that during 2023 they are going to abolish the BT brand and merge everything in to the EE brand. Currently both BT and EE provide broadband and mobile so it makes sense to merge in to one brand. However i would have used BT and got rid of the EE brand. BT is such a well known name that has been around for decades and decades. It has been known under that name for at least fourty years. EE on the other hand is a much less known name that has been around for only less than ten years. In fact pretty much everyone knows that BT means British Telecommunications but practically nobody could tell you what EE means. So i think this is a big mistake and they should have done the opposite and gotten rid of the EE brand and used the BT brand for everything. I also wonder whether Plusnet will be abolished too. I would be interested to hear others thoughts on this merger.

The merger has already taken place, and the BT brand is not being abolished. As far as I know, the EE brand will be used for consumer service and the BT brand will continue for business services.

Their recent advertising has been hinting at this for a while now.

 

[johncrossley]

So i think this is a big mistake and they should have done the opposite and gotten rid of the EE brand and used the BT brand for everything.

Mistake for who? Them or customers? The telecommunications market is now very fragmented and has been for many years. Seemingly timeless brands get retired and are forgotten. The Orange brand seemed to be a particularly strong one and removing that in favour of EE seemed a strange move to me at the time but nobody cares about that now.

 

[43096]

I have just spoken with someone at BT who has told me that during 2023 they are going to abolish the BT brand and merge everything in to the EE brand. Currently both BT and EE provide broadband and mobile so it makes sense to merge in to one brand. However i would have used BT and got rid of the EE brand. BT is such a well known name that has been around for decades and decades. It has been known under that name for at least fourty years. EE on the other hand is a much less known name that has been around for only less than ten years. In fact pretty much everyone knows that BT means British Telecommunications but practically nobody could tell you what EE means. So i think this is a big mistake and they should have done the opposite and gotten rid of the EE brand and used the BT brand for everything. I also wonder whether Plusnet will be abolished too. I would be interested to hear others thoughts on this merger.

EE is English Electric, isn’t it?

 

[skyhigh]

In fact pretty much everyone knows that BT means British Telecommunications but practically nobody could tell you what EE means.

Does it matter? To be honest, EE used to stand for something, but as far as I'm aware it no longer does. I suspect quite a large proportion of the population would know what industry EE was in if you asked them which is all that matters, really.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Dec 2022 ==

I also wonder whether Plusnet will be abolished too.

Doubt it. Having several brands is great for market segmentation by covering the 'high end' and more budget conscious consumers. See also Voxi/Vodafone, SMARTY/Three, GiffGaff/O2 and several other examples.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The merger has already taken place, and the BT brand is not being abolished. As far as I know, the EE brand will be used for consumer service and the BT brand will continue for business services.

Their recent advertising has been hinting at this for a while now.

This I believe is correct, though I think it might actually cause them to lose some business from the older market. What they have an opportunity to do here is to use the "older" BT brand for a more expensive, more human-supported range of services aimed at older customers (including mobiles), and the "newer" EE brand aimed at younger, more tech savvy people who will use online support and self-help forums and the likes.

I suppose at least if they keep BT for business they've got the opportunity to switch to that if they find EE isn't working for everything.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Dec 2022 ==

Doubt it. Having several brands is great for market segmentation by covering the 'high end' and more budget conscious consumers. See also Voxi/Vodafone, SMARTY/Three, GiffGaff/O2 and several other examples.

I've always found the retention of Plusnet amusing. "Good honest broadband from't BT in London".

If it sells stuff though...

 

[johncrossley]

Does it matter? To be honest, EE used to stand for something, but as far as I'm aware it no longer does. I suspect quite a large proportion of the population would know what industry EE was in if you asked them which is all that matters, really.

It was originally "Everything Everywhere" but that didn't really catch on and it became EE soon afterwards. I bet if you asked EE what it stands for, they would say it doesn't stand for anything. Similarly, we all know the current BT brand comes from the historical British Telecom(munications) but they would probably say that BT is just two letters and that's it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It was originally "Everything Everywhere" but that didn't really catch on and it became EE soon afterwards. I bet if you asked EE what it stands for, they would say it doesn't stand for anything. Similarly, we all know the current BT brand comes from the historical British Telecom(munications) but they would probably say that BT is just two letters and that's it.

According to what a friend was told to say HSBC didn't in fact stand for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, but for "quality".

I think she was quite thankful she did her job behind thick security glass, because that kind of smart-aleckry is a good way to get assaulted by an unhappy customer.

 

[tomuk]

Mistake for who? Them or customers? The telecommunications market is now very fragmented and has been for many years. Seemingly timeless brands get retired and are forgotten. The Orange brand seemed to be a particularly strong one and removing that in favour of EE seemed a strange move to me at the time but nobody cares about that now.

Well the Orange brand is alive and well outside the UK. I is the brand that BT's French equivalent France Telecom has used since 2013. France Telecom bought Orange back in 2000 and despie selling off the original UK Orange to BT and other Orange branches around the world it has kept the brand for itself.

 

[coppercapped]

Does it matter? To be honest, EE used to stand for something, but as far as I'm aware it no longer does. I suspect quite a large proportion of the population would know what industry EE was in if you asked them which is all that matters, really.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Dec 2022 ==

How times change!

In the 1960s I was a (very junior) development engineer in the power transmitting radio valve division of English Electric and could say that I worked for the same company that built the Canberra and Lightning aircraft, and it powered the entire Southern Region and built the Deltic locomotives.

EE lives...!

Doubt it. Having several brands is great for market segmentation by covering the 'high end' and more budget conscious consumers. See also Voxi/Vodafone, SMARTY/Three, GiffGaff/O2 and several other examples.

 

[swt_passenger]

This I believe is correct, though I think it might actually cause them to lose some business from the older market. What they have an opportunity to do here is to use the "older" BT brand for a more expensive, more human-supported range of services aimed at older customers (including mobiles), and the "newer" EE brand aimed at younger, more tech savvy people who will use online support and self-help forums and the likes...

I think when this was first publicised in the late spring, they suggested BT would be retained for home broadband as long as it wasn’t bundled with a mobile contract?

If my email stays as myname@btinternet then that’s what I’ll probably describe it as…

 

[fgwrich]

EE is English Electric, isn’t it?

No, it's more reliable that that!

 

[lachlan]

The merger has already taken place, and the BT brand is not being abolished. As far as I know, the EE brand will be used for consumer service and the BT brand will continue for business services.

Their recent advertising has been hinting at this for a while now.

Broadband and TV are going to be moving over to the EE brand.

Plusnet is being retained as a "value" brand.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Mistake for who? Them or customers? The telecommunications market is now very fragmented and has been for many years. Seemingly timeless brands get retired and are forgotten. The Orange brand seemed to be a particularly strong one and removing that in favour of EE seemed a strange move to me at the time but nobody cares about that now.

I don't know for certain but suspect the sale was likely on the condition of either ceasing to use it or paying a hefty licence fee to France Telecom to continue using it, hence the decision not to. The other half, T-Mobile, would definitely have required that (to Deutsche Telekom).

I wouldn't say Orange was universally respected, though, I always saw them as quite expensive, with stupidly named tariffs (typically French, see also SNCF's names for stuff) and very poor customer service. There was also a bit of a collision with the Orange brand of mountain bikes (though at least unlike the original North Western Trains livery, which never made it onto a train, they didn't rip off their logo too!)

 

[tomuk]

I don't know for certain but suspect the sale was likely on the condition of either ceasing to use it or paying a hefty licence fee to France Telecom to continue using it, hence the decision not to. The other half, T-Mobile, would definitely have required that (to Deutsche Telekom).

I wouldn't say Orange was universally respected, though, I always saw them as quite expensive, with stupidly named tariffs (typically French, see also SNCF's names for stuff) and very poor customer service. There was also a bit of a collision with the Orange brand of mountain bikes (though at least unlike the original North Western Trains livery, which never made it onto a train, they didn't rip off their logo too!)

Everything Everywhere was used as the parent company name after the 2010 merger of T Mobile UK and Orange UK. In 2012 EE was launched as a retail brand for their then new 4G services this branding was also extended to the new fibre broadband later that same year. In 2014 EE then removed T-Mobile and Orange branding from retail and new sales. The old branding remained for existing contracted customers. It was in 2015 that BT bought EE from France Telecom (Orange) and Deutsche Telecom. From 2006 France Telecom had used Orange as it's worldwide retail brand and in 2013 renamed it self to Orange.

The Orange brand of course had been started as a relaunch by Hutchison Whampoa of their acquired UK Rabbit network and its soon to be launched 1800MHz 2G service back in 1994.

 

[johntea]

I was a long term EE (just mobile not broadband) customer, but they've lost me now as they decided as a loyalty reward for my 24 month SIM only contract coming to an end they were going to put my monthly bill up by another £4.50

I found a great deal with Three (or '3'), now I'm paying just £10 a month for a 12 month SIM with 100GB of data with £66 cashback on the way, so my entire monthly mobile SIM contract will now cost £4.50 rather than £22.85 that EE proposed! No idea what Three will suggest after 12 months but no doubt another deal will have come up somewhere by then

The new 'text for PAC code' routine is fantastic too, no longer do you have to spend hours on end to your mobile provider begging you to stay in broken English!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I was a long term EE (just mobile not broadband) customer, but they've lost me now as they decided as a loyalty reward for my 24 month SIM only contract coming to an end they were going to put my monthly bill up by another £4.50

I found a great deal with Three (or '3'), now I'm paying just £10 a month for a 12 month SIM with 100GB of data with £66 cashback on the way, so my entire monthly mobile SIM contract will now cost £4.50 rather than £22.85 that EE proposed! No idea what Three will suggest after 12 months but no doubt another deal will have come up somewhere by then

The new 'text for PAC code' routine is fantastic too, no longer do you have to spend hours on end to your mobile provider begging you to stay in broken English!

See if you still think that when you find out just how utterly abysmal Three's coverage is. There's a good reason they're cheap. I'd only go near them if I lived in London or another major city and barely went outside it.

 

[gswindale]

Everything Everywhere was used as the parent company name after the 2010 merger of T Mobile UK and Orange UK. In 2012 EE was launched as a retail brand for their then new 4G services this branding was also extended to the new fibre broadband later that same year. In 2014 EE then removed T-Mobile and Orange branding from retail and new sales. The old branding remained for existing contracted customers. It was in 2015 that BT bought EE from France Telecom (Orange) and Deutsche Telecom. From 2006 France Telecom had used Orange as it's worldwide retail brand and in 2013 renamed it self to Orange.

The Orange brand of course had been started as a relaunch by Hutchison Whampoa of their acquired UK Rabbit network and its soon to be launched 1800MHz 2G service back in 1994.

And now "3" is owned by CK Hutchison who were formerly Hutchison Whampoa.

 

[najaB]

In fact pretty much everyone knows that BT means British Telecommunications but practically nobody could tell you what EE means.

BT hasn't meant "British Telecommunications" for the better part of twenty years.

 

[Phil56]

It could also be for them to get rid of the negative image/unreliability issues of BT.

They're a nightmare in our village, we still don't have fast/reliable broadband in some parts of it. Virgin came and put their cabling everywhere and now most people have switched to Virgin. BT blame their old copper cabling (they've not put fibre in yet, not even to the street "boxes").

BT also have very bad image/reputation in an industrial estate on the edge of our nearest town, where lots of businesses have reported being without phone and/or internet for weeks (not at the same time). BT say it's down to ancient wiring (it's an old industrial estate first developed in the 60s).

The problem seems to be that they're very slow to replace the ancient copper cabling, which is starting to fail. I suspect that renaming themselves to EE will coincide with expansion and increased speed of their conversion of copper cabling to fibre, so they can really market high speed fibre under the EE name and kick aside the poor reputation of BT!

 

[najaB]

The problem seems to be that they're very slow to replace the ancient copper cabling, which is starting to fail.

This is, in many cases, not their fault however. The process of getting wayleaves and TROs can take a *very* long time. It's been a long time since I had any direct knowledge of the process but there was one particular cable run that had taken several years to plan because of the need to coordinate closures with the Highways Agency, Network Rail and the local authority. All it would take is one blocked duct and they'd be back into the multi-month coordination process.

 

[ainsworth74]

They're a nightmare in our village, we still don't have fast/reliable broadband in some parts of it. Virgin came and put their cabling everywhere and now most people have switched to Virgin. BT blame their old copper cabling (they've not put fibre in yet, not even to the street "boxes").

Indeed. I gave up waiting for them to put fibre of some sort into my village around five years ago and switched to Virgin for broadband only (no need of any other service). I was told by the engineer that came to fit the kit that this was an extremely common set-up in my village and he was regularly installing broadband only set-ups as people got fed up of waiting for BT to upgrade their network but had no need of the other services that Virgin had on offer.

Honestly don't know how I made it as far as 2017 on little more than 3Mbps on a good day! Just having a look now looks like they've still not upgraded. Presumably it's not worth their while now as everyone has probably switched to Virgin Media in this area by now

 

[skyhigh]

Indeed. I gave up waiting for them to put fibre of some sort into my village around five years ago and switched to Virgin for broadband only (no need of any other service). I was told by the engineer that came to fit the kit that this was an extremely common set-up in my village and he was regularly installing broadband only set-ups as people got fed up of waiting for BT to upgrade their network but had no need of the other services that Virgin had on offer.

Honestly don't know how I made it as far as 2017 on little more than 3Mbps on a good day! Just having a look now looks like they've still not upgraded. Presumably it's not worth their while now as everyone has probably switched to Virgin Media in this area by now

BT have some bizarre sort of roll out plan for upgrades and I've never understood it. My parents live in a large town in Hertfordshire - on an estate where their road was relatively new infill (the estate being built in the 70s, and their road in the early 90s). The whole estate other than their road had Virgin and copper wiring but they were reliant on the copper wiring and could get a max of around 5mbps download speeds. BT brought FTTC to the estate, but only made it available to every road except the one that my parents lived on which had no option to switch to Virgin. So you had the ridiculous situation where 95% of the estate had a choice of up to 150mbps via FTTC or superfast Virgin, but all they had was 5mpbs.

Eventually Virgin agreed that if a certain number of homes on the road agreed to sign up to a 2 year contract they'd install their services - which is what happened, and similar to you almost every house switched to Virgin for broadband but didn't bother with any of the extras.

It's pretty clear they don't want to do any more than the bare minimum to their legacy network.

 

[JamesT]

I've always found the retention of Plusnet amusing. "Good honest broadband from't BT in London".

If it sells stuff though...

Plusnet is confusingly separate, at least their broadband section. Their router is clearly a derivative of the BT hub, but it’s a different network at the backend so they don’t support things like IPv6. You would have thought enough time has gone past that it would be cheaper to fold them into one.

 

[GusB]

Indeed. I gave up waiting for them to put fibre of some sort into my village around five years ago and switched to Virgin for broadband only (no need of any other service). I was told by the engineer that came to fit the kit that this was an extremely common set-up in my village and he was regularly installing broadband only set-ups as people got fed up of waiting for BT to upgrade their network but had no need of the other services that Virgin had on offer.

Honestly don't know how I made it as far as 2017 on little more than 3Mbps on a good day! Just having a look now looks like they've still not upgraded. Presumably it's not worth their while now as everyone has probably switched to Virgin Media in this area by now

That would suggest to me that Openreach are content to forego customers who have an alternative, and focus on areas where there is no other infrastructure provider.

I couldn't get Virgin broadband even if I wanted to - the only options I have are BT (or any other BT Wholesale supplier), or one of the two companies which provide unbundled services, ie TalkTalk and Sky. I'm fortunate in that, while I live in a village, the exchange is located not too far away and it has always been upgraded to offer any new features quite early on - perhaps it's used as a test bed.

Getting back on topic, it will certainly be a bit strange receiving services from anyone other than BT, but it won't make any difference in practice. The equipment sent out by BT, EE and Plusnet is all the same anyway.

 

[najaB]

That would suggest to me that Openreach are content to forego customers who have an alternative, and focus on areas where there is no other infrastructure provider.

That's down to the Government - they have put a fair wodge of money into providing super-fast broadband but it's only available to the first provider in an area. So, naturally, Virgin, Sky, et. al have moved in to areas that BT don't currently serve and done the relatively easy bits and left BT with the parts that don't make commercial sense.

 

[DelayRepay]

I would have thought removal of the BT brand would be harmful to BT's business.

I think there are probably a reasonable number of people, particularly those who are older or less tech savvy, who sign up with BT because they're BT. I don't think the EE brand has the same 'pull'. It's similar to British Gas who have never changed their name to Centrica despite that being the name of their parent company.

I can see why they would use the EE brand for mobiles, BT Mobile isn't well known. But for residential broadband and landlines, BT must be the first brand a lot of people think of when looking for a new connection.

But I guess they've done their research!

Everything Everywhere was used as the parent company name after the 2010 merger of T Mobile UK and Orange UK. In 2012 EE was launched as a retail brand for their then new 4G services this branding was also extended to the new fibre broadband later that same year. In 2014 EE then removed T-Mobile and Orange branding from retail and new sales. The old branding remained for existing contracted customers. It was in 2015 that BT bought EE from France Telecom (Orange) and Deutsche Telecom. From 2006 France Telecom had used Orange as it's worldwide retail brand and in 2013 renamed it self to Orange.

And of course BT's original mobile brand was BT Cellnet, which became O2, which following a merger is now Virgin Media O2.

 

[Ashley Hill]

But for residential broadband and landlines, BT must be the first brand a lot of people think of when looking for a new connection.

I still have a landline. Will this become EE or stay as British Telecom?

 

[najaB]

I still have a landline. Will this become EE or stay as British Telecom?

It's not been British Telecom for the better part of twenty years.

 

[GusB]

I would have thought removal of the BT brand would be harmful to BT's business.

I think there are probably a reasonable number of people, particularly those who are older or less tech savvy, who sign up with BT because they're BT. I don't think the EE brand has the same 'pull'. It's similar to British Gas who have never changed their name to Centrica despite that being the name of their parent company.

I can see why they would use the EE brand for mobiles, BT Mobile isn't well known. But for residential broadband and landlines, BT must be the first brand a lot of people think of when looking for a new connection..

There will be a fair number of people who have never switched from their original supplier post-privatisation (energy firms included). These people haven't chosen BT so much as they've chosen not to go elsewhere, often missing out on better deals (my mum was one such "loyal" customer). There is a certain amount of fear about a switch going wrong, including a fear of losing a long-held telephone number. These people aren't going to be affected by the rebrand to EE as they're unlikely to change provider anyway. Yes, they're probably older, but nature dictates that there will be fewer of them as time goes by.