Orange Accelerates the Roll-out of Mobile HD Voice in Europe

Barcelona (ots/PRNewswire) -

- Following the World's First Commercial Launch by Orange of a Mobile
High-definition (HD) Voice Service in Moldova in Sept 2009, Orange Will
Also Launch Mobile HD Voice in France, Luxembourg and Spain in Addition
to the UK and Belgium in 2010
- The Service Will Deliver a Significantly Improved Quality of Voice and
Sound That Will Enable Orange to Transform the Mobile Experience for
its Customers
- Three Month Customer Trial to Run from Spring in the UK

Orange is today ramping up its planned roll-out of mobile HD
voice services in Europe with the addition of France, Spain and
Luxembourg to its 2010 roadmap. Mobile HD voice is the second
critical strand in Orange's HD voice strategy, building on from the
highly successful delivery of HD voice services for VOIP in 2006.
Following technological developments, Orange has confirmed that its
UK customer trial of mobile HD voice will start from Spring and run
for three months.

In September 2009, Orange became the world's first operator to
commercially launch a mobile HD voice service in Moldova, announcing
plans to bring mobile HD voice to the UK and Belgium in 2010. In
addition to mobile HD voice, Orange was also the first operator to
launch HD over VOIP, first in France and shortly to be rolled out to
Poland and Spain.

Olaf Swantee, senior executive vice president for Orange's global
mobile business, said: "As far as Orange is concerned, voice is not
just a commodity. With mobile HD voice, we are delivering true
customer innovation - one that will genuinely enrich and transform
our customers' lives. By being the first to innovate and deliver a
new mobile voice experience, we provide a compelling and
differentiated proposition which sets Orange apart. High-definition
voice is the future standard for mobile communication."

Customers using mobile HD voice services will benefit from the
best possible sound quality, including a much richer and natural
sound that is capable of conveying emotion significantly better than
an ordinary handset. It helps people hear better in noisy
environments, providing clearer voice conversations and creating a
much closer feeling of proximity between both parties, almost as if
callers are actually in the same room.

Orange plans to rapidly extend the range of HD voice-compatible
mobile handsets across Europe. Pricing and handsets will be announced
at the time of launch locally.

HD Voice uses the AMR-WB (Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband) speech
codec. This provides excellent audio quality due to a wider speech
bandwidth of 50-7000 Hz compared to the current narrowband speech
codec of 300-3400 Hz. The AMR-WB delivers significantly enhanced
sound quality whilst utilising the same network resources.

Voice services are expected to continue to be the largest revenue
generator worldwide, accounting for 69% revenues on a global basis
and for no less than 60% in any region in 2014 (Ovum).

For more information: http://www.orange.com,
http://www.francetelecom.com , http://www.orange-business.com

ots Originaltext: Orange
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
CONTACT: Georgina Hart:
+44-7730-989-693,georgina.hart@orange-ftgroup.com; Vanessa Clarke:
+44-7891-056-593,vanessa.clarke@orange-ftgroup.com; Heloise
Rothenbuhler:
+33-1-44-44-03-47,heloise.rothenbuhler@orange-ftgroup.com;
Louis-Michel Aymard :+33-1-44-44-61-54,
louismichel.aymard@orange-ftgroup.com