September 7, 2010 by Jenny Sanderson
Telecommunications giants Orange and T-Mobile have announced that their customers will soon be in a position to ‘hop’ between both mobile networks. The move has been revealed following the recent merger of the two companies, which sees over thirty million customers coming together.
The announcement heralds the start of a number of benefits which customers of the two networks may experience, as the organisations draw together in the wake of the merger. By combining the strengths of both firms, it is thought that customers will see a greatly enhanced service, overall. At the moment, the network hopping service will be available for 2G signals only, which means that people who use the web for their mobile services will not benefit from the change.
The new service, called ‘free roaming’, will be available to customers of the two organisations from early October. People will have to sign up in order to benefit. As soon as they have registered their device, users will be able to move between one network and the other, in the event that they are experiencing reduced signal from network coverage. The concept mirrors the technique used by people when they take their mobiles abroad.
Shaun Collins from the research company CCS Insight commented: “Outside of the South-East [of England] there has been a constant perception that T-Mobile is an underperforming network. The network coverage is becoming a key battleground between the major UK networks. The network coverage advantages of the merger [between Orange and T-Mobile] were always the most important part of it.”
A spokesperson from Everything Everywhere, the company that runs Orange and T-Mobile in the UK, commented: “Phones will automatically switch to whichever of the two networks has the strongest signal mid-call. We also have plans to roll it out to 3G services. When we do, Orange customers will be able to use a 3G network owned and operated by Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL), a joint venture company owned by Three and T-Mobile. Everything Everywhere will be adding Orange sites to the network it shares with Three in the course of time, and Three customers will get access to a significant proportion of those as they are added.”
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