The European Commission has okayed the acquisition of Orange Netherlands by T-Mobile. The agreement includes Orange mobile and broadband services in the country. Orange has about 1.9 million mobile customers and 612,000 internet users, of which 458,000 are subscribing to broadband over cable and ADSL, in the Netherlands. France Telecom currently owns Orange Netherlands.
The merger will make T-Mobile the second-largest mobile phone operator in terms of subscribers in the Dutch market after integration with their own mobile operation in the country. Dutch incumbent KPN is market leader with Vodafone coming in third place. Earlier, KPN acquired Telfort mobile.
With regard to Orange broadband, the company said it has postponed earlier plans to roll out the Orange IPTV service in the country. Today it launched a low cost double-play offer of 4 Mbit/s ADSL and VOIP for 14,95 Euro per month, during the first year.
