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Orange mobile goes wired, VoIP and broadband

Orange Wireless & Talk is France Telecom's way of getting all your comms business - broadband, wireless and mobile. It includes a "dedicated Orange line" into your family home, a six pound per month flat rate for all voice calls to UK landlines, using VoIP over broadband.

It's described as "integrated communications." The deal was announced today as a joint venture between Wanadoo, the French broadband company, Equant, the business ISP, and Etrali, the business to business arm of France Telecom.

It also marks a new brand: "Orange Business Services - a single banner for all of the group's business comms, building on the strength of the Orange brand," said the company. Orange "will be the flagship brand world wide," said Orange CEO Sanjiv Ahuja at the launch.

Ahuja said that in his view "customers don't care about the technology, they want a seamless experience." The announcement today makes Orange "the only company in the UK to combine broadband, fixed line and mobile communications simply, efficiently and seamlessly under a single brand."

The biggest surprise for rivals will probably not be the mobile offering, but the decision to sell Wanadoo broadband in Orange phone shops - there are 300 around the UK high streets. There are a million odd Wanadoo broadband customers in the UK, and they are all now branded as Orange.

Observers are likely to be initially sceptical about the Etrali inclusion in the bundle, but "voice trading" is a massive cost-reducer when it works. It gives the user the illusion of dealing with a human being over the phone, without the expense of a call centre, or the irritation of dealing with people in foreign parts of the world with marginal command of colloquial English.

Ironically, the mobile side - Orange's grass roots - is least represented by the announcements. Contract customers will be able to make free calls to other Orange mobile numbers, but otherwise, all the attention is on broadband and Internet.

Watch for further mobile announcements later this year.

  Tags: BT Fusion or fixed mobile and of course, Orange