Mobile Phone Deal Given Go-Ahead

• News
• Published: 02 Mar 2010 in Household and Gas Electricity

Britain's largest mobile phone operator will be created after the merger between Orange and T-Mobile was given the go ahead.

The tie-up between the two companies will see them take a 37% market share in the UK, or nearly 30 million customers, and focus on delivering high-speed mobile broadband infrastructure.

The European Commission (EC) backed the deal after the operators agreed to a number of concessions to allay fears within the industry. The UK's competition watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) also agreed to the deal after it withdrew initial concerns.

France Telecom's Orange, and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile are currently the UK's third and fourth largest mobile phone operators.

They agreed to give up some bandwidth and reached a new agreement with 3, Britain's smallest mobile provider, which has a network sharing deal with T-Mobile.

Tim Hottges, chief financial officer of Deutsche Telekom, said: "Now the way is clear for pooling our resources to create an outstanding high-speed mobile broadband network in one of the most competitive markets in Europe."

Another concern from rival firms was how the new entity would have a significant share of the radio spectrum at the 1800 megahertz range. This is suitable for next-generation wireless technology that will enable faster web surfing on mobile phones.