Orange and T-Mobile merge networks

Customers of Orange and T-Mobile will soon be able to hop between the two mobile networks. The deal is one of the first practical benefits from the recent merger of the two firms, which have 30 million customers combined. The network sharing deal is limited to 2G signals, meaning that customers will see little benefit when using the mobile web "Outside of the South-East [of England] there has been a constant perception that T-Mobile is an underperforming network," said Shaun Collins of research firm CCS Insight. He said that network coverage was becoming a "key battleground" between the major UK networks. "The network coverage advantages of the merger [between Orange and T-Mobile] were always the most important part of it," he said. Customers of the two firms will have to sign up for the free "roaming" service, which goes live on 5 October.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11199786