2degrees and Orcon Group to merge

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › 2degrees and Orcon Group to merge

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#2842239 3-Jan-2022 07:43

Vodafone might have a better product offering than they used to before merging with TCL, but I would hardly call their customer service better.

With 2degrees, I recall their customer support team was inherited from the old Snap setup (ie, all in Christchurch). I wonder if that will stay the same?

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#2842361 3-Jan-2022 09:24

I'm of two minds regarding this merger:

Firstly - it is continuing the path of Mobile-Broadband operator consolidation and the emergence of the "big three". We can already see that 2D is on its way to being fairly corporatised and with that we will probably see double talk such as "we compete on value, not on price" (Telecom-Spark). If that happens, what we can expect to see is that the big three will have similar plans, similar prices with very minor variances over time. We already see a bit of that on the forums with price increases on mobile and the whole removal of rollover/creation of playing with 'hour of data' for pay monthly customers.

Secondly - a more powerful entity could be better placed to compete with the big two. Skinny being created out of Digital ventures was a direct response to 2 Degrees and one of its goals was to retard the ability of 2 Degrees from claiming that they were 'cheapest in market'. With Skinnys current pricing and their 6 month free promotions, you can safely say that there isn't much margin in the game and very few providers would be in a position to sustain such margins (or lack of). The other neutron bomb on the horizon is the Power companies - they're interested in making customers 'sticky' and more inclined to make higher margins on the power with lower margins on broadband.

Honestly - I would like more of the second than the first but suspect the first will prevail.

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#2842458 3-Jan-2022 14:36

KiwiSurfer:

Agreed. NPD came here to Manukau last year with great prices. But now most days they're actually more expensive than even the big guys up the road. Same story with the nearby Gull, used to have good deals (especially when they still had Speedlane at many stations offering a discount if you paid by card at the pump) but no longer the case. Looking at Gaspy right now I have to scroll and scroll and scroll before I find NPD or Gull -- NPD/Gull is 249cents whereas I can get Mobil for 239cents and even Z has several stations cheaper than NPD/Gull.

Larger companies with more integrated characteristics are actually more likely to be able to afford to undercut than smaller "innovative" companies that usually have only one real trick up their sleeve, burning venture capital. On the fuel front for example, in Australia the entry of Costco has done more to keep a handle on fuel prices than any other. This same principle applies equally to other industries such as telecommunications, where the behemoth TPG (parent of iiNet, Vodafone-Hutchison, AAPT, PipeNetworks, and the list goes on) forced the incumbent Telstra to launch their own cut price offering (Belong) - familiar story?

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the next step weren't Vocus Group spinning off NZ operations into a listed entity. It would certainly be in a better position after the merger for it, since selling it didn't work out.

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#2842527 3-Jan-2022 17:26

Hopefully I won't lose my /29 allocation as a result of this. Also what about ipv6?

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#2842532 3-Jan-2022 17:55

You probably won't, but expect it to be legacy/grandfathered in.

I would expect there might be issues if you change plans or move locations.

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#2842538 3-Jan-2022 18:13

Seems like a good play for what orcon have been doing in their business customers (failover to 4g)

Bit of a big wave though to the industry. Will be interesting for sure.

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#2842547 3-Jan-2022 19:01

cokemaster:
You probably won't, but expect it to be legacy/grandfathered in.

I would expect there might be issues if you change plans or move locations.

Why should this be the case?

Why would either side want to do anything to threaten their existing customer bases? This is the value proposition, after all.

In the short term i'd be very surprised if anything changes at all.

Consolidating the technology stacks will take some time.

Just look at how long it took for the ihug and TCL networks to become fully intertwined. They still had their 'coloured' networks for years post merger.

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#2842576 3-Jan-2022 21:40

The news is out! We’re excited to share with you that pending regulatory approvals, 2degrees will be merging with Orcon Group to provide you with great products and services in the telecommunications and energy sector.

As New Zealand’s third largest integrated telecommunications company, there will be some pretty exciting times ahead as we bring an even greater level of competition to the New Zealand market.

This announcement marks a major milestone in 2degrees’ history and future. As we work on plans to bring the two businesses together, we’ll keep you updated about what it will mean for all of the great brands – 2degrees, Vocus, Orcon, Slingshot, Flip, 2Talk, and Stuff Fibre.

In the meantime, it’s business as usual for us and we’ll keep on delivering our same great products and services to you as we continue Fighting for Fair to make New Zealand a better place to live.

More information is available here.

Thanks for being with us,

Mark Aue, CEO
and the team at 2degrees

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#2842597 3-Jan-2022 21:57

Orcon does retail energy. I did not know this. That makes things interesting. Scott's link above does not give the number of energy customers while giving broadband and mobile customer numbers.

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#2842599 3-Jan-2022 22:14

quickymart:
Vodafone might have a better product offering than they used to before merging with TCL, but I would hardly call their customer service better.

With 2degrees, I recall their customer support team was inherited from the old Snap setup (ie, all in Christchurch). I wonder if that will stay the same?

An increasing amount of Vodafone's support is in Christchurch too. The interesting thing about living in NZ is that we're such a multi cultural society that you might be speaking to a citizen, but still get a foreign accent and assume they are overseas.

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#2842791 4-Jan-2022 09:07

Hmm, I’m not sure how I feel about this. As a disgruntled ex-Orcon customer this doesn’t look good at face value. Over the years I’ve been a customer of a few different providers and Snap!/2Degrees have been, by far, the best. Even when everything broke with CGNAT, one phone call and my issue was fixed (with no ongoing cost).

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#2842899 4-Jan-2022 09:32

scottjpalmer:
The news is out! We’re excited to share with you that pending regulatory approvals, 2degrees will be merging with Orcon Group to provide you with great products and services in the telecommunications and energy sector.

As New Zealand’s third largest integrated telecommunications company, there will be some pretty exciting times ahead as we bring an even greater level of competition to the New Zealand market.

This announcement marks a major milestone in 2degrees’ history and future. As we work on plans to bring the two businesses together, we’ll keep you updated about what it will mean for all of the great brands – 2degrees, Vocus, Orcon, Slingshot, Flip, 2Talk, and Stuff Fibre.

In the meantime, it’s business as usual for us and we’ll keep on delivering our same great products and services to you as we continue Fighting for Fair to make New Zealand a better place to live.

More information is available here.

Thanks for being with us,

Mark Aue, CEO

and the team at 2degrees

I thought Sky Broadband would come under the brands list also?

I can see a number of those brands being consolidated

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#2842964 4-Jan-2022 10:07

Vocus doesn't own Sky (broadband) though, does it? I thought they just did their provisioning work for them as an outsourced thing.

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#2842974 4-Jan-2022 10:21

Pretty sure Sky just has Vocus as a wholesale resell.

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#2843025 4-Jan-2022 11:55

insane:

An increasing amount of Vodafone's support is in Christchurch too. The interesting thing about living in NZ is that we're such a multi cultural society that you might be speaking to a citizen, but still get a foreign accent and assume they are overseas.

Not really. When I did my house move with Vodafone my case was handled by a guy who was great to deal with, and who happened to have an Indian accent. It was pretty obvious to me that he was NZ based because he was chatty and relaxed, unlike outsourced call centre staff who sound as if they have an awful working environment.

Personally I'm a strong believer in on-shored call centres staffed by people with a wide range of backgrounds, even if it adds a bit to my monthly bill.

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