Now, here’s an interesting story, from the pages of IntoMobile, which will help quantify why Orange and T-Mobile have gotten involved in this massive merger-y joint venture thing that everyone’s talking about. Yup, it’s time to talk cash, and specifically, how much money they’ll be saving.
First up, though, let’s talk about the not-quite-so-positive-as-the-rest-of-this-blog-post bit, the closing of 120 Orange and T-Mobile shops up and down the country.
Y’see, this is the nature of business: it’s to make money, and to save costs wherever possible, so as to maximise the amount of money made. And the closing of 120 shops will save them about £85million per year, in operational and distribution costs. That’s not a number to be sneezed at. But yes, it does mean a lot of people are going to be out of jobs, and that isn’t a particularly positive aspect to this piece. But that’s the nature of the beast. It means a saving of £85million a year, but it also means people out of work.
But then, it does mean massive savings for the networks. It’s not pleasant to think like that, but them’s the bare facts.
Ok, that’s that bit out of the way. On to something a lot more positive. Let’s talk cell towers. More specifically, let’s talk about having less cell towers in operation. Y’see, in a lot of places, it’s entirely likely that Orange and T-Mobile will currently have two separate cell towers (one per network), each currently handling their own network traffic. So, in areas like that, they can comfortably turn off one of the towers, and still maintain coverage. As an unexpected bonus for all you greenies out there, that would mean a lower carbon footprint.
Crucially, though, that means lower costs for the networks, since they’re only running one tower at a given location, not two. That saves money. A lot of money. Projections state that, when the savings have fully ramped up, by 2014, the joint venture will be saving £145 million per year. That’s quite a lot of cash. And where might they spend this cash?
Why, on getting new cell towers into areas where there aren’t any, thus neatly increasing their overall national coverage. Which means, for us normal people, that our Orange/T-Mobile phones will get coverage in more places.
This is almost the dictionary definition of win-win…
Now, for the big number, the one I’ve been working up to for this whole post. The overall costs saved. This whole plan will save them in the region of £3.5 BILLION.
That makes finding an unexpected pound down the back of the sofa look a bit rubbish, doesn’t it…
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