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ORANGE OUTLINES VISION OF MOBILE BROADBAND AND FIRST STEPS IN DELIVERY OF CONVERGED SERVICES Orange Group CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja comments, "This is the year when mobile broadband will come of age – when we expect to see significant numbers of our customers begin to explore next generation services, enabled by mobile broadband. As a mobile operator, we are in a unique position as part of the France Telecom Group, to provide our customers with solutions to connect every aspect of their personal and professional lives through offering simple, innovative communication solutions. Across the France Telecom Group, we share a philosophy that strives to put the customer at the centre of everything we do. "Our theme at Cannes this year is Orange Everywhere which is about giving our customers what they need, whenever and wherever they need it. Giving customers access to the people, places and information that matters to them – music, games, movies, news, contacts, email, photos or their favourite football team. "This is an era when exciting innovations like mobile broadband and fixed-line convergence are transforming possibilities for the customer and Orange will be at the forefront of these developments." France Telecom Group, Wanadoo and Orange announced that they will be offering consumers a brand new way to access 3G on the move and Wi-Fi in the home through a single datacard, as an extension of the already successful, Business Everywhere solution for enterprises. The solution will initially be deployed in the UK. The Orange / Wanadoo datacard will connect customers wherever they are to the fastest available service. In the home customers would connect via WiFi to the Wanadoo LiveBox – the revolutionary broadband hub that provides wireless broadband access anywhere in the house. Outside of the home, customers will automatically be connected to the Orange, giving them access to the UK's largest 2G/3G integrated network. This announcement follows several years of close collaboration between the companies which last year included bundled mobile and Internet broadband offers. Bernard Ghillebaert, Executive Vice President, Orange UK comments: : "Last year was an exciting one for Orange UK with the launch of 3G services. This year we expect to see uptake of mobile broadband rise steeply. OFCOM recently reported an 800% rise in online usage among broadband customers, compared to usage on standard dial-up and that there was a marked increase in video content accessed. We anticipate that similar patterns will emerge in the mobile broadband space and early analysis of usage patterns from 3G customers supports this, with almost 20% of all downloads on Orange World now being video clips."
Orange France is also bringing the benefits of convergence to its customers enabling them to use video calling between their Orange 3G handset, Wanadoo visio and Telecom MaLigne visio. Orange France will be launching its EDGE network later this year meaning that over 80% of the population will be covered with mobile broadband in 2005. The city of Cannes will be the first to benefit from the high-speed capacity of EDGE as Orange France will be launching the service there shortly. Orange has continued with its roll-out of WiFi hotspots and has tripled the number in the last year to over 7,000 hotspots across the country. Didier Quillot, Executive Vice President, Orange France comments: "Orange is passionate about delivering a better future today by offering the most simple and intuitive personal communication experience to as many of our customers as possible. The launch of 3G services in France in 2004 was an important first step in mobile broadband and we will be widening that experience this year, with the deployment of EDGE technology. "EDGE offers a fast and cost-effective way to bring mobile broadband to customers right across the country including rural and less densely populated areas. Our colleagues in Romania and Slovakia have already launched EDGE and we've been learning from their experiences as we prepare to launch our first EDGE services in Cannes in the near future. "But we're not stopping with EDGE. We've begun some early testing of HSDPA, which will help us to deliver the real promise of 3G through its multi-mega bit delivery capabilities. For customers this means faster access to their content on the move – email, videos, live TV, news and information. We've yet to set an exact date for launch but we expect it be some time in 2006 dependent on the readiness of the network and compatible devices. "
This new range demonstrates an increased focus from Orange on its Signature phone strategy and in producing phones targeted at specific market segments. Gaming on the SagemMyX6-2, and Talk Now on LG 2250 have been developed specifically for the youth market, and video calling will now feature on a much broader range of devices in order to make it available and accessible across most customer segments. Following the success of the SPV range, Orange confirmed that it would be adding a Windows Mobile-based 3G phone, produced by HTC, to its Signature portfolio later in the year. In 2004, Orange had 23 devices in its Signature Phone range - 20 new phones will be in the H1 2005 range alone. To be part of the Orange Signature phone range, the devices have been produced by the manufacturers in accordance with a strict set of guidelines that ensure a familiar Orange experience for the user - one touch access to many services such as voicemail, camera, the internet and exclusive applications such as Orange Backup and Orange Update. The total Orange Signature customer base reached over 3.2 million at the end of 2004 and by the end of 2005, Orange anticipates that over 30% of all handsets sold across the group, will be Signature. Vivek Badrinath, Executive Vice President of Products, Technology and Innvoation added: "Orange as a company has always been about innovation and that's exactly what we're doing with mobile broadband for our customers – we're innovating with new technologies, smart devices and converged solutions in a way that other operators just aren't equipped to do. Our strength lies in being part of the France Telecom Group, Europe's largest fixed, internet and mobile company. This gives us access to excellence in R & D, infrastructure, support and most important of all, a shared belief in the importance of putting customer needs at the heart of what we do. The future's bright, the future's Orange. " To find out more about Orange Everywhere For more information, call the Orange Media Centre on +44 207 984 2000
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Orange and Wanadoo to launch first converged product in UK later this year