4 replies to this topic

[Croccy22]

Well as soon as my orange contract comes up for renewal in a few months I was planning on moving to T-mobile. Mainly because their tarrifs seem far more modern these days with the unlimited internet access etc. Also I felt like supporting them since they seem to be the main Network for Android phones at the moment.

But now as I wake up this morning I find that orange has bought t-mobile! So what does this mean for us? Is orange now going to take on board the Android devices with as much enthusiasm as T-mobile have done? Are they going to take on the contract sytle of T-mobile and give us the unlimited internet access?

Orange tried unlimited free internet access around the time when I bought my htc diamond but they soon cancelled the offer and now I believe they only do internet packages at another additional cost each month.

My only hope lies firmly with HTC. Since orange are at least a strong HTC phone provider and HTC have already announced they have a strong Lineup for android devices then at least the phones should keep on coming.

I really feel that my backup plan of buying the phones sim free and then taking out SIM only contracts with the best month by month offers around may actually become my primary choice.

I did some calculations and with buying the hero and a £15 a month sim only contract, over 18 months you save around £200 over getting the hero on an orange contract at £35 per month and still having to pay £100 to geth the phone.

What are your thoughts on all this then?

Matt, Croccy22.

[Chris Jenx]

Croccy22, on Sep 8 2009, 07:35, said:

Well as soon as my orange contract comes up for renewal in a few months I was planning on moving to T-mobile. Mainly because their tarrifs seem far more modern these days with the unlimited internet access etc. Also I felt like supporting them since they seem to be the main Network for Android phones at the moment.

But now as I wake up this morning I find that orange has bought t-mobile! So what does this mean for us? Is orange now going to take on board the Android devices with as much enthusiasm as T-mobile have done? Are they going to take on the contract sytle of T-mobile and give us the unlimited internet access?

Orange tried unlimited free internet access around the time when I bought my htc diamond but they soon cancelled the offer and now I believe they only do internet packages at another additional cost each month.

My only hope lies firmly with HTC. Since orange are at least a strong HTC phone provider and HTC have already announced they have a strong Lineup for android devices then at least the phones should keep on coming.

I really feel that my backup plan of buying the phones sim free and then taking out SIM only contracts with the best month by month offers around may actually become my primary choice.

I did some calculations and with buying the hero and a £15 a month sim only contract, over 18 months you save around £200 over getting the hero on an orange contract at £35 per month and still having to pay £100 to geth the phone.

What are your thoughts on all this then?

Matt, Croccy22.

Was it an acquisition or a take over. What you may find is that Orange is run by the FT-Group (french i think) so it may be an aquisition, in which case t-mobile stays as it is just they report to Orange.

[Croccy22]

Chris Jenx, on Sep 8 2009, 12:56, said:

Was it an acquisition or a take over. What you may find is that Orange is run by the FT-Group (french i think) so it may be an aquisition, in which case t-mobile stays as it is just they report to Orange.

From looking at the news they are already talking about removing cell masts and making cost savings etc etc. Guess we will have to wait and see!

[scoobytwo]

as far as i'm aware its a 50/50 merger. Both will use each others networks etc but it will be the bosses at orange who will run things. So it seems like there will still be a t-mobile but surely more savings could be made by only having one company? Mind you it could be a way round the mergers comission as i don't thing you can merge with a company to suddenly become the biggest market share of your particular field. As for removing masts etc i'd imagine that would only happen where there were 2 orange and t-mobiles masts in the same place. The extra ones would probably all be relocated to improve the network further.

So for orange and t-mobile users it looks like it would be a good thing. Probably not for certain orange and t-mob staff mind you.

[chucky.egg]

I think it's a shame - it means one less competitor forcing the remaining networks to offer attractive deals.

T-Mobile were the network who "forced" the "unlimited" internet issue. They brought out WnW, which made all the other network offerings look like extortion.

The other networks fell into line eventually and reluctantly, but not til they (especially Orange, who were for a time the network for WM handsets) lost subscribers to T-Mobile.