Hutchison signals end of Orange

By Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 01 February 2006 22:41

Home IT

Hutchison Telecommunications has announced plans to migrate users of its CDMA network onto its 3G network and to close down the network.

The move comes in the wake of Telstra's announced plans to shut down its CDMA network which is essential to Hutchison in order for to provide national coverage, through roaming agreements, to its CDMA customers.

Hutchison claims over half a million 3G customers and a similar number of CDMA customers.

The Orange branding will be scrapped immediately, all sales activity for Orange services will cease immediately and the 3G brand, '3' adopted for both services. Orange customers will be offered attractive deals, including subsidised handsets to persuade them to migrate to the 3G network. Remaining instalments on their existing CDMA handsets will be waived.

Hutchison CEO, Kevin Russell, said: "In January alone, in a campaign to a targeted segment of our base, over 20,000 2G customers upgraded to 3G. This interest in upgrading will grow with today's launch of the first mass market Nokia 3G handset – the 6280." He added: "The market impact of a mainstream Nokia shouldn't be underestimated. Given that the majority of our 2G base are Nokia users, a feature rich, affordably priced Nokia will be a very attractive offer."

He said that the continued operation of the CDMA network would be reviewed "once a significant proportion of our customers have upgraded and are settled in with their 3G service...Telstra has already put a timestamp on that technology of approximately three years. Customers want certainty now, so we would expect that upgrade process to complete well within that timeframe."

The move seems to have been driven largely by Telstra's shutdown plans, unveiled last November. It was only in September last year that Hutchison launched a new service offering on the Orange network, Mobile+Home. It gave the customers local phone number on which they could be contacted on their cellphone when at their designated location (home or office). Calls from that location were also charged at lower rates than normal cellphone calls.