With its T-Mobile UK merger complete, Orange UK has put its wireline network into BT Group's hands. Driven by the need to reduce ongoing financial and subscriber losses, BT will take over the operations of Orange UK's wireline network, which currently reaches about 65 percent of the UK population.
By offering wireline voice and Internet services over BT's network, Orange UK will be able to double its broadband footprint to more effectively compete with other competitive service providers such as Virgin Media and TalkTalk. In the network handover process, about 61 of Orange UK employees will become BT employees, and it's possible that T-Mobile could develop its own broadband service.
As of the end of December 2009 Orange UK had 840,000 broadband subscribers, but it continued to trail the growth of its competitors losing 137,000 customers in the year to date.
Bruno Duarte, Orange's vice-president of strategy, said subscriber growth factors prompted it to alter its wireline strategy. "We are not satisfied with where we stand with broadband, as our customer base is declining and our performance is poor," he said. "But we need to remain in fixed line broadband so decided to fundamentally change what we are doing."
For more:
- TeleGeography has this article
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