O2 & Virgin Media To Merge

Certainly in my case, I renew my mobile contract with VM using live chat on the website than go into the shop. It's much more convenient bar Yodel having the contract to deliver expensive handsets.

I’m with sky mobile and just had a “network provider settings update” notification, maybe they’ve changed networks?

They're still using O2. I'd maybe check to see if Sky Mobile have now enabled WiFi Calling. It's usually something minimal when they push out network updates.

It appears to be something to do with roaming as a new sim applications option has appeared in the mobile data settings on my iPhone which leads to a roaming selector to choose if you are abroad

Ah - I remember Sky's roaming options being far worse than O2 when they launched, which was the major reason I didn't switch from O2 to Sky Mobile. (They didn't have equivalents of O2's £5/day flat rate options for a number of countries I travel to outside of Europe)

Have Sky Mobile said they're switching networks? It seems inevitable, but I've not seen any announcements.

Why would it seem inevitable? I imagine they would be happier staying on O2 rather than jumping to EE.

Sky and Virgin Media compete in other markets - it feels like they'd be unlikely bedfellows in mobile.

As do Sky and BT (EE).

Exactly my point!

Maybe Sky Mobile could join Three (can't see that happening, their network is falling apart) or Vodafone (possible), but I don't know what they would gain from doing that. If you vox pop'd the average Sky Mobile customer they probably wouldn't be able to tell you that O2 are supplying their mobile signal.