European Commission approves merger of super carrier

The European Commission has approved the proposed merger between Orange UK and T-Mobile UK which will have wide-ranging effects on the future provision of 3G and 4G availability in the country and knock on effects on VoIP traffic.

"I am happy that we managed to resolve the competition issues in this case quickly in close cooperation with the Member State concerned," said European competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia.

The merger will reduce the number of operators in the UK from five to four, forcing a major change on the competitive landscape of the British mobile market.

The formation of the super carrier will allow for consolidation between the two merged companies (which are subsidiaries themselves of France Telecom (Orange UK) and Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile UK) and, it has been reported across the media, may lead to consolidation and expansion of the provision of 3G and, eventually, 4G access.

3G and 4G provide phone users with the level of data required to run hefty VoIP traffic over the network, allowing for cheaper, more easily available roaming VoIP calls from 3/4G capable smartphone handsets.