The two companies already share a major stakeholder – France Telecom – and have now signed a memorandum of understanding, which provides a larger access possibility for the mobile phone company to a new customer base and will allow NTL to expand its operations base.
Details of the agreement will be finalized over the coming months, according to an Orange spokesman, prior to a probable launch in the autumn.
France Telecom wants to leverage the two companies’ interests with a third of its major shareholding ventures in the ISP, Freeserve.
Orange, which holds around 28% of the UK mobile market is set to deliver calls through NTL’s cable network at low rates. In turn, Orange is expected to be a virtual network operator for NTL, forging a mobile service for NTL’s customers, of which about 500,000 already use Orange services.
NTL will unite mobile to television, fixed line telephony and Internet producing a single payment for services.
