Tuesday 18 August 2015

PHONE HOME MNC!



virgin-media-logo.jpgI am very aware that my broadband, phone and mobile are provided by Virgin Media1 which is a multinational corporation (MNC).  It has a very convoluted history but its parent company is Liberty Global,2 an American company with London Headquarters.  Apart from it being a Multinational I quite like Virgin Media, mainly because they have free help-lines, so until I find a supplier which is not owned by a multinational I will stay with them! If anyone has one please let me know?

I had my hopes that Plusnet3&4 would be a UK only company, it is, but it is owned by BT5 which is not. BT has operations in over 170 countries.

Talk Talk6 were always outside Morrison’s trying to get me to change to them, (I do not know if they are still there as I don’t use Morrison’s any more), they were owned by Carphone Warehouse7 but the two demerged in 2010.  It appears that I could use them but my friend just changed to them but recommends that I don’t as she was told she could take her email address with her and she can’t. Oh what to do?

The High Street phone shops and mobile networks are obviously doing great business otherwise they would not be so prevalent but are they MNCs?

Carphone Warehouse is a UK multinational with 2,400 stores across Europe.  It has been a subsidiary of Dixon’s Carphone since Aug 2014.

Apple Inc8 obviously is, being an American company but not only that, it is second only to Samsung9 as the world’s largest information technology company.

Telecom Towers,Power Transmission Towers Exporters,TelecommunicationEE10&11 (formerly Everything Everywhere) is a 50/50 partnership between Deutsche Telekom12 and Orange S.A.13(formerly France Télécom) through their respective T-mobile and Orange networks and is now the biggest mobile network in the UK. This is one of the many examples of UK services being provided by foreign governments.  The German government has a 32% share in Deutsche Telekom and the French government owns 27% of Orange! However in February 2015, BT announced that they have agreed to acquire EE Limited for £12.5bn. This is subject to regulatory approval expected by March 2016. Unfortunately The UK government sold its entire share of BT so this will mean the French and German governments get big pay outs but it will not help nor hinder ours!

Telefonica UK14 owns o215, it is a subsidiary of Telefonica S.A. a giant Spanish telecommunications company which operates worldwide.

Three16 are part of Hutchison Whampoa,17 who has its headquarters in Hong Kong. Three provide services in the Far East, Australia and Europe.

The last provider I am going to talk about is Vodaphone,18 as I am losing the will to live.  Saying I am not very interested in phones, is an understatement! Vodaphone owns and operates networks in 21 countries, so it is definitely a multinational. Congratulations to readers who made it this far.  I promise this will be the driest of my posts!

References 

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Media
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Global
  3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlusNet
  4. https://www.plus.net/home-broadband/about/
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Group
  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TalkTalk_Group#Demerger
  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carphone_Warehouse
  8. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_inc
  9. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung
  10. ee.co.uk
  11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EE_Limited
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Telekom
  13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_S.A.
  14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telef%C3%B3nica
  15. http://news.o2.co.uk/about-us/
  16. www.three.co.uk
  17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchison_3G
  18. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodafone

2 comments:

  1. I thought it fascinating. Well done for all the work and putting it so simply.

    ReplyDelete