Talk:Orange (telecommunications)

Ad campaign

The following para was added in to the article but erased and moved here by User:ChrisUK for further debate

Recently, the company has come under increasing pressure to improve its Customer Services Department after a number of customers had made extensive complaints. To combat this, the company invested heavily in an advertising campaign with public faces such as Elton John and Stephen Fry

I think a few things need to be clarfied about it before it goes back in:

1. Are there any references on the internet for this pressure that we can link to to back up the statement
2. Is there any evidence that the company started the ad campaign to combat it (I thought the campaign was about 3G not customer service)?
3. Is there a counter view on customer service (e.g. awards etc) that can be added as well to balance the point of view?

Thoughts? ChrisUK 21:46, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

WATCHDOG UK CAN CONFIRM THOUSANDS OF COMPLAINTS AND ORANGE WILL REGRET BUYING WANDADOO WITH ITS NON EXISTANT AFTER CARE.

To address Point 2 >> The company have started an ad campaign to stress their new focus on Customer Services with "putting Orange customers first", etc, to combat negative publicity with the oriental "wise" gentleman, although the Elton John/Stephen Fry campaign which is running alongside their customer service ad is for 3G. This bit needs to be changed.

Point 1 >> There are many experiences and websites which highlight poor Orange CS and the pressure which is being put on them. Of the top of my head, HateOrange is an excellent example, and the fact that the company needs to go to the highly expensive advertising campaign in Point 2 shows the pressure that they are/were under.

OK, these points may be true, I dont know. But this is an encyclopedia, not a mobile phone review site. There are plenty of sites out there for people to let off steam about their phone company. What may be of interest here is whether Orange is less customer service facing than the industry as a whole etc etc. Also, the cause and effect may be interesting to document (e.g. if the cause is bad CS, the solution was and ad campaign - did it work, have they had more customers leave/join etc).

I don't know if you are an Orange customer or not. We on wikipedia jsut have to be careful that we are not writing pieces which reflect our own personal views, but instead we are producing a highly authoritative reference etc that can be relied upon for quality information. Otherwise we add to the myth that out there that Wikipedia is full of opinionated rubbish. ChrisUK 10:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate what you are saying, but Orange have had bad reviews about their CS. It is a problem facing the company and as a result they are using advertising to reverse this image. I was an Orange customer, but am no longer. What I am saying is true and fact. There has been a marked shift towards a CS approach in the last few months because of their poor CS. I think this should be documented.

It is well known that the mobile phone industry gives poor CS - O2 (or BT Cellnet as was), Orange, Virgin - etc have all come in for some heavy criticism over the years, but it is Orange who have had to resort to heavy advertising.

OK - lets try and get some text hacked together. Here's a start from me - adding in as well that this is only UK since this page is actually about Orange SA (ie the whole corporation) ChrisUK 17:12, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the UK, Orange has come under pressure from customers to improve the Customer Services department. In response, an advertising campaign was run to re-enforce the companys commitment to customer service. Campaigns have also been run to advertise the new 3G service and featured public faces such as Elton John and Stephen Fry.

Fantastic!

Cool. I'll add in to the page and let's see where it goes from there! ChrisUK 08:33, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Cheers.

Hi, i dotn know if any of you have a background in mobile telecomms, but do any of you remember "merlin"? and oranges customer service/dealer system software. I understand they still actually use it. Would hateorange be a useful link on this article? What about the disastrous wildfire "10,000 transmitters by 2000" would love to contribute81.151.173.45 09:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Merlin was the internal name for the Customer service frontend system based on Vantive. The merlin system provided a single interface into about 5 diffrent systems that were used to manage various aspects of CSS.

Ownership

This article is about the legal entity Orange SA. Therefore it should only really relate to the networks that actually belong to Orange, or at least France Telecom. References to Orange networks in Israel, Australia, India and Hong Kong should be deprecated or treated seprately unless this article is renamed along the lines of Orange brand...

• Well, I don't know who wrote that. It's worth remembering that these were franchisees or subsidiaries of the Orange brand, as licenced from Orange SA, until they were discontinued, or demerged. In fact, in India and Australia, the local franchises reverted to Hutchison ownership (who were the original owners of Orange after all), so it is relevant to Orange. (RM21 00:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC))

Wanadoo

Seeing how Wanadoo have finished their transition into Orange ([1]), the article should be merged in as well Will (^E_@) T 17:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree. Wanadoo existed as a UK company until 30 April 2006 and as an independent brand in the marketplace until 31 May 2006. The wanadoo article should be kept to reflect this piece of history. ChrisUK 20:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with ChrisUK it shouldnt be merged. Matthew Fenton (TALK - CONTRIBS) 15:42, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Not merged, however I think it should be expanded to explain the new services Orange as offering to their customers and the important Quad Play will have, e.g. the One Phone system.--Neal 16:25, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Provided the history of Wanadoo [and its predecessor company, Freeserve] are retained within the article, then I don't see why the articles cannot be merged. It must be remembered that Orange now owns all the fixed assets, and infrastructure of Wanadoo. Apparently the only Wanadoo company that is NOT being migrated is the Dutch Wanadoo. Can anyone explain this?? (RM21 10:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC) )

www.wanadoo.nl now redirects to www.orange.nl so this looks like a timing issue. --KenBailey 22:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

No Merge. I dont see the benefits of the articles being merged, Orange has never owned any of Wandoo's assets as its Orange's parent company (France Télécom) that does. The company name change is just part of France Télécom's brand simpifcation. As long as both articles state about the name change there is no need for the merge. All merging will do is dilute the information contained in the articles.

I believe that most company name changes still have a article on the company under it's previous name see: [[2]] [[3]]

There are also no real practical reasons for the merge as wikipedia encourages the splitting of large articles into smaller ones and with a simple wiki link a user can easily get information of the company since the name change.

Nor is there any wikipedia policy that really dictates that this article should be merged as one of the main reasons for a merge is if there is a large amount of information overlap but with the two articles there is not really any except for the information about the brand change. TheEnlightened 22:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

No Merge. The brand name 'Wanadoo' is an entity in its own right. Although it is unlikely that the Wanadoo page will see much change in the future, it should still contain information regarding this brand before the name changed.

Well, I agree with the 'no merge' lobby, but if that is the case, then why does a search for "Freeserve" simply redirect us to the Wanadoo page with virtually no information on the history of the original company that existed for 4 years before being bought by Wanadoo/France Telecom?

It should be merged because in France (and soon in other European countries), even if Wanadoo still belongs to France Telecom, they have decided to rebrand everything Wanadoo under the Orange brand (so now there is Orange Mobile & Orange Internet Services). Just check www.wanadoo.fr and you'll see where you get. Now, of course it's only in France yet, but this is France Telecom, so it's quite normal they start with France (just like Wanadoo started in France), and they'll soon do the same elsewhere.

No merge - Wanadoo info should be retained for historic reasons, page should make it clear this was awell known brand in 2004-2006. Also make reference to Wanadoo's stance on VAT, in that beng based in Maderia they charged/paid lower rates of VAT, but of course did not pass on any of this saving to their customers.

Merge and No Merge :)

Given the recent changes within the group, this article, as it stands, is both confused and confusing.
The Wanadoo article and info should be retained for historic reasons, just as there is a separate (but linked) article for Freeserve. This can be used for any companies that continue (or resume) trading under the Wanadoo brand, (though I don't think there are any left now).
The contempory Wanadoo/Orange ISP operation information should be be incorporated into this article as a service-oriented == ISP == sub-section, into which the historic and current ISP information can be pooled and linked.
The majority of the existing information can be restructured to put the International Corporate contexts under the France Telecom umbrella as an introductory section, in which some brave souls can attempt to chronicle the the international M&A activities, or, perhaps better, link to the France Telecom article.
The predominately telecoms oriented information in this article as it stands should be regrouped, either as "Telecoms" generally or split into "Mobile" and "Fixed".
This approach, (admittedly vague :), would allow us to put the developing Wireless offerings into an infrastructural context and leave the door open for the next delivery channel development (Satellite?, Smoke signal?? :)
We can then separate out the product/content/service elements if required, whether that is voice, email, SMS, MMS, web, music, video, TV, test card.... whatever....
KenBailey 22:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Renaming to Orange Telecom

I suggest this article to be renamed as Orange Telecom, as Orange is not a company anymore, but just a brand name used by France Telecom (which is the company).

I suggest simply Orange. It is the real brand name, not Orange Telecom and not Orange SA.Dima1 19:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the name is only Orange not Orange Telecom or Orange SA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.29.27.91 (talk) 20:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Orange is a disambiguation page, so I suggest Orange (telecoms). UncleBucko 12:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Hans Snook

I think some mention should be made regarding the role Hans Snook had in the set-up of Orange back in the 90's. I don't know enough about the subject, but I understand he had a great influence on what we know now as Orange. Stephend01 13:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move the page to Orange (brand), per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 05:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

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Orange (telecoms) → Orange (brand) — The current name does not use a common disambiguator and may not be well know to many users. It appears that Orange here is basically a brand so why not name the article to reflect this? I realize that there may be other options, but I think the current choice simply wrong. —Vegaswikian (talk) 23:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Technically the Orange brand, and the separate Orange Business Services brand, belong to Orange Personal Communication Services Limited which is a subsidiary of France Telecom (see France Telecom site). On the grounds that Wikipedia prefers to use unique names if possible, without brackets, it could be argued that the main article should be at Orange Personal Communication Services Limited, with redirects at Orange (brand) etc. You also see Orange PCS sometimes, they quite often use that at a corporate level even if it fails WP:COMMONNAME. I can live with Orange (brand) but I thought I'd mention that option. FlagSteward (talk) 15:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I had looked at France Telecom's site and could not find that. I would not object to the longer name since like you say it is the correct name. It is a tad long but that is not a reason to not use it. As far as I'm concerned the closing administrator, or anyone else, can move this to Orange Personal Communication Services Limited as following the naming conventions. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The only problem with using Orange Personal Communication Services Limited is that it is the name of FT's UK subsidiary, whereas this article is about the global brand. There's already an article on Orange PCS at Orange United Kingdom. Orange PCS may be the origin of the brand, and technically still the owners, but the brand is now far bigger than the UK company. I moved this page to Orange (telecoms) (from the obsolete Orange SA), but I'd be quite happy with Orange (brand). UncleBucko (talk) 09:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

UK Origin of the Orange name

The article does not seem to refer to the UK origin of the country...I would like to suggest that this is mentioned as it is a fairly important aspect of this company...Orange United Kingdom has a reference to the origin, but not the main article. Darkieboy236 (talk) 15:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It's in there, but somewhat buried in the detail. I've expanded the lead to summarise the history, to make it more prominent. UncleBucko (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Optimus Portugal

France Telecom (and through association Orange) has a 20% minority stake in Optimus Portugal (represented by Atlas Service Belgium - source: http://www.sonae.com/channelDetail.aspx?channelId=CE114251-A307-40AD-9D7E-AEC503276576) Although France Telecom is a strategic or refrence partner it doesn't have any sort of control or joint control intrest. 85.139.150.39 (talk) 12:43, 22 August 2010 (UTC)Tomas

Use of the Orange brand by other companies

Why is it that when Australia-related aspects of a topic are mentioned in an article, the English is atrocious? Written by Australians, maybe? (I'm an Australian so I can talk about it.) It is often worse than passages relating to other countries written by obviously non-native English speakers. It seems a lot of Australians can't do sentence structure. Maybe someone with the right sources (no refs there, either) can fix it up.—An Sealgair (talk) 03:26, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Nice Schoolboy Howler...

I was shocked to read the following:-

Formerly Orange PLC, the brand was created in the United Kingdom which became a subsidiary of Mannesmann in 1999 and was acquired by France Telecom in 2000.

I know that politicians have been selling us out for years, but I didn't realise they'd sold the United Kingdom to Mannesmann! :-O

Ubcule (talk) 21:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus is to merge.--Labattblueboy (talk) 16:09, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

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I propose that France Télécom be merged into Orange (telecommunications), since France Telecom just rebranded itself wholly into Orange on July 1, so basically France Telecom does not really exist anymore. Mamdu (talk) 10:58, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with merging the articles together. I'll rename the France Télécom article as Orange S.A. to reflect the name change. The content from Orange (telecommunications) could then be merged into there when ready. Bbb2007 (talk) 18:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree however Orange S.A. owns Orange (telecommunications), Orange Marine and EE (telecommunications). Merging the articles would mean you would be saying a telecommunications company own 50% of another telecommunications (EE) company which may or may not be correct. Regards, Rob (talk) 22:14, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Support - I just came to check something about Orange and Partner and got completely confused because there are 3 articles regarding what is essentially the same company (Partner_Communications_Company, Orange (telecommunications), Orange S.A.) Haha01haha01 (talk) 11:14, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merger

I've complete the merger. Future discussions at Orange S.A..--Labattblueboy (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2014 (UTC)