Yep, this here be big news, alright, so big that everyone, including our own news section, has already covered it, but hey, that’s never stopped me from doing a blog post before. But anyway, yes, as you may have read elsewhere, the big news today (and yes, it is a doozy) is that Orange and T-Mobile are going to be joining forces, merging to create one supermassive ubernetwork.
In other words, Orange and T-Mobile will eventually no longer exist as we know them today, as separate networks, but as one, single entity.
It goes without saying there’s a lot of crucial and important questions running through people’s minds as they hear that news. You know, vital things like ‘what will the new network be called’, ‘will they still have mad animal-themed tariffs’, ‘will their logo be a kind of salmony-pink-tangeriney-orange colour’ and other such crucial things. And then people will complain, ‘cos that’s what people do.
After a moment’s thought, though, I can see some rather nice benefits for both sets of users, the biggest being increased coverage. With the network infrastructure from both being rolled into one network, that theoretically means both sets of customers will get a massively increased number of areas where they’ll get coverage.
Say you’ve got two separate areas on the map, and in one area, you can only get a signal on Orange, while in the other, you can only use T-Mobile. After the merger, both networks will work equally well in both areas.
This is what we call a good thing.
Also, think of some of the exclusive phones each individual network’s got. Orange have got the Toshiba TG01, and T-Mobile had the G2 Touch (alright, not the best example, since it’s a rebadged HTC Hero… but they also had the T-Mobile G1, and that was an honest to god exclusive). Potentially, then, both sets of network users will get access to more exclusive phones in future.
So, yes, it’s still got to be approved by various oversight groups (not least the Monopolies and Mergers Commission), and then we’ll have to see how well the two networks gel together, bearing in mind one is French, and one is German. And I love both nations, so there. So, on the one hand, you’ve got the French, who have an innate grasp of pleasure and sensuality, and whose idea of a good breakfast is chocolate bread. And on the other, there’s Germany, who are very precise and accurate, and have a frankly awesome heavy metal scene.
When the two combine in harmony, you get something awesome like the Bugatti Veyron. Am I excited? In a word, yes. In several other words, it seems the future is bright, and the future’s a sort of salmony-pink-tangeriney-orange colour…
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