Orange And T-Mobile Become ‘Everything Everywhere’

The UK’s largest mobile operator has officially started work today, with all 16,500 staff belonging to Orange and T-Mobile UK now working for the quirkily-named ‘Everything Everywhere Limited‘.

Essentially, the change means that the branding exercise can begin in earnest, with new logos for buildings, Everything Everywhere staff email addresses, and new business cards etc.

“The formal integration of our new company, Everything Everywhere Limited, is another major milestone and reflects the rapid progress we have made over the past nine months,” said Tom Alexander, Chief Executive.

“Today we have created the country’s biggest communications company, and as the new leader in the industry, it is our aspiration to give our customers instant access to the world around them, to everything everywhere, through both of our brands, Orange and T-Mobile,” he added.

Long Time Coming

The deal has certainly taken a while to come to fruition, ever since Deutsche Telekom put the T-Mobile UK unit up for sale in May 2009. Vodafone reportedly considered a £3 billion bid for T-Mobile UK in June, and so did O2. However, T-Mobile and Orange finally confirmed they intended to merge in November.

The merger got the green light from the European Commission back in February, after the parent companies (France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom) offered to sell off part of their combined radio spectrum in exchange of EC approval of the deal. This was despite the consumer group, the Communications Consumer Panel, expressing its unease over the European Commission’s approval of the T-Mobile/Orange merger without a detailed investigation

Then in May it was revealed that the combined entity of Orange and T-Mobile would be named ‘Everything Everywhere’, but the two brands will remain autonomous.

Mobile Gorilla

Everything Everywhere looks set to dominate the mobile sector, as it still has the bulk of the 1800 MHz spectrum in the UK, and should have a significant advantage over other mobile networks.

It’s got other advantages, including its colossal size compared to other mobile players. Even Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile operator (in terms of sales), will be dwarfed in its home market, as Everything Everywhere will control a 37 percent slice of the UK mobile space, and has a customer base of 30 million people – over half of the UK adult population.

There is little doubt that the UK mobile market-place has been hopelessly overcrowded for some years now, with five separate mobile operators scrapping in a highly saturated market-place. Now there are just four players.

Website Issue

However, one issue looks to have resolved and that is to do with company’s website. A quick “everything everywhere” Google Search now reveals two options.

Previously, the EverythingEverywhere.com URL was taken by a blogger by the name of Gary Arndt, who used it to blog on his journey around the world back in 2007. This looks to have been resolved however, with Arndt now using the everything-everywhere.com URL instead.