Auditel Consultant:
Nick Beaumont-Jones

Orange and T-Mobile join networks

06 Sep 2010 | Filed under: Industry Comment

The merger between Orange and T-Mobile will soon show tangible benefits for their 30 million customers in the UK.

The merger (the new company being rebranded as “Everything Everywhere”) makes Orange/T-Mobile the largest mobile phone operator in the UK.

From 5th October, Orange and T-Mobile customers with 2G phones will find that their mobiles will automatically hop between networks whenever the signal strength weakens, just as it would when roaming abroad. This will benefit T-Mobile’s brand considerably as the preception of the market is that they are very much a second string network.

Initially, customers will have to register with their respective provider if they want to get the benefit of this free service, but from next year all phones will automatically switch between networks mid-call. Eventually 3G customers will also be allowed roaming between the two networks.

When this happens, Orange customers will be able to use the 3G network presently jointly owned and operated by “3″ and T-Mobile. “3″ customers already use the Orange network for 2G calls and texts.