France Télécom

Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, the group had revenue of €40 billion. The company's head office is located in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.

Orange has been the company's main brand for mobile, landline, internet and Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services since 2006. The Orange brand originated in the United Kingdom in 1994 after Hutchison Whampoa acquired a controlling stake in Microtel Communications: that company became a subsidiary of Mannesmann in 1999 and then was acquired by France Télécom in 2000. The France Télécom company was rebranded to Orange on 1 July 2013.

The company has faced criticism due to the Orange S.A. suicides.

History

Nationalised service (1878–1980s)

In 1792, under the French Revolution, the first communication network was developed to enable the rapid transmission of information in a warring and unsafe country. That was the optical telegraphy network of Claude Chappe.

In 1878, after the invention of the electrical telegraph and then the invention of the telephone, the French State created a Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. Telephone Services were added to the ministry when they were nationalised in 1889. However, it was not until 1923 that the second 'T' (for 'telephones') appeared and the department of P&T became PTT.

In 1941, a General Direction of Telecommunications was created within this ministry. Then, in 1944, the National Centre of Telecommunications Studies (CNET) was created to develop the telecommunications industry in France.

In the 1970s, France attempted to make up for its delay in developing communications infrastructure, compared to other countries, by launching the programme "Delta LP" (increasing the main lines). It was at the time when the majority of the local loop was built; that is all the cables linking the users to the operator. Moreover, with the help of French manufacturers, digital switching, the Minitel and the GSM standard were invented by engineers and CNET researchers.

In 1982, Telecom introduced Minitel online ordering for its customers.

Creation of France Télécom (1988–1997)

Until 1988, France Télécom was known as the ''direction générale des Télécommunications'', a division of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. It became autonomous in 1990. This was in response to a European directive, aimed at making competition mandatory in public services from 1 January 1998. The 2 July 1990 Bill changed France Télécom into an operator of public law, with Marcel Roulet the first Chairman. Since then, the company has had a separate body corporate from the State and acquired financial autonomy. It was privatised by Lionel Jospin's Plural Left government starting on 1 January 1998. The French government, both directly and through its holding company ERAP, continues to hold a stake of almost 27% in the company. In addition, the government Conseil of Ministers names the CEO.
In September 1995, Michel Bon was appointed to run France Télécom Group.

'Roaring Nineties' (1997–2000)

In 1997, the capital of the new public company was successfully floated whereas the dot-com bubble phenomenon made the stock exchanges bullish. A second share offering occurred in 1998. France Télécom got behind in the internationalization launched by its international competitors such as Vodafone, thus, it started looking for targets at the highest speculation rate of the dot-com bubble. Moreover, its alliance with Deutsche Telekom based on a reciprocal capital contribution of 2% broke off when Deutsche Telekom announced that they were planning to do business with Telecom Italia without letting the French know – even if this project ended up failing.

Acquisition of Orange and privatisation

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bar:Actionnaires from:01/01/1996 till:01/09/1999 color:redorange text:"Hutchison Whampoa ~and ~British Aerospace" align:center width:45
bar:Actionnaires from:01/09/1999 till:01/11/1999 color:orange text:"~Mannesmann AG" align:center width:45
bar:Actionnaires from:01/11/1999 till:01/08/2000 color:redorange text:"Vodafone" align:center width:45
bar:Actionnaires from:01/08/2000 till:end color:orange text:"France Télécom" align:center width:45
bar:Faits from:13/02/2001 till:13/02/2001 color:black text:"French stock exchange introdution" width:50 fontsize:M
bar:Faits from:01/06/2001 till:01/06/2001 color:black text:"~ ~Itinéris, Ola and ~Mobicarte become Orange" width:50 fontsize:M
bar:Faits from:01/06/2006 till:01/06/2006 color:black text:"Wanadoo becomes Orange" width:50 fontsize:M
bar:Faits from:21/11/2003 till:21/11/2003 color:black text:"~Exits Paris Stock Exchange" width:50 fontsize:M
bar:Faits from:01/11/2008 till:01/11/2008 color:black text:"~Orange Cinéma Séries ~and Orange Sport ~launch" width:50 fontsize:M

In July 1991, Hutchison Telecom, a UK subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, acquired a controlling stake in Microtel Communications Ltd, who by then had acquired a licence to develop a mobile network in the United Kingdom. Hutchison renamed Microtel to Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd, and on 28 April 1994 the Orange brand was launched in the UK mobile phone market. A holding company structure was adopted in 1995 with the establishment of Orange plc. In April 1996, Orange went public and floated on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, majority-owned by Hutchison (48.22%), followed by BAe (21.1%). In June 1996, it became the youngest company to enter the FTSE 100, valued at £2.4 billion.

In October 1999, the German conglomerate Mannesmann AG acquired Orange for a price equivalent to €7,900 per customer, i.e. US$33bn. Mannesmann's acquisition of Orange triggered Vodafone to make a hostile takeover bid for Mannesmann. Shortly thereafter, in February 2000, Vodafone acquired Mannesmann for US$183 billion, and decided to divest Orange because the EU regulations wouldn't allow it to hold two mobile licences.

In August 2000, France Télécom bought Orange plc from Vodafone for a total estimated cost of €39.7 bn. At the time, France Télécom also bought stakes in several other international firms (GlobalOne, Equant, Internet Telecom, Freeserve, EresMas, NTL and Mobilcom), of which some have since been sold back. Through this process, France Télécom became the fourth biggest global operator. The mobile telephone operations of Orange plc were merged with the majority of the mobile operations of France Télécom, forming the new group Orange S.A.

On 13 February 2001, Orange S.A. was listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange with an initial public offering of 95 Euros per share, with a secondary listing in London. In May 2001, Orange S.A. was listed on the CAC 40, the benchmark stock market index of the top 40 French companies in terms of market capitalisation.

In June 2001, the France Telecom Mobile brands Itinéris, OLA, and Mobicarte were replaced by the Orange brand. On 21 November 2003, France Telecom withdrew the 13.7% of Orange's shares traded on the Paris stock exchange.

On 2 October 2002, the CEO, Thierry Breton was given the task of turning the company around after the company became crippled by debt following the drop of the company's stock price. On 30 September 2002, the company's stock price was €6.94, down from €219 on 2 March 2000. France Télécom was the second most indebted company worldwide in terms of short-term liabilities. The company obtained 15bn of debt adjustment that needed to be borne by banks and investors, another 15bn as a capital increase from the French State since it was still the majority shareholder, and an additional 15bn in cash from internal savings. On 25 February 2005, Thierry Breton was appointed Minister of Finance and Industry and Didier Lombard, who had been head of the firm's new technologies division, replaced him as CEO.

NeXT scheme and rebranding to Orange (2006–present)

The NeXT scheme was the recovery plan for France Télécom which aimed at, among other things, reducing costs, especially wage costs, carrying on a converging policy for its products and services, and grouping together all the brands under a single brand, except for the activities dealing with fixed-line telephone which would stay under the designation 'France Télécom'. Consequently, this led to the disappearance of a number of brands.

From 1 June 2006, France Télécom tried to commercialize all its products under a single worldwide brand, becoming the sole brand of the France Telecom group for Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries in which Orange operated. Orange Business Services became the brand for all its business services offerings worldwide, replacing the Equant brand. In June 2007, Orange and Mid Europa Partners acquired Austrian mobile network company One, re-branding it as Orange Austria. In 2012, it was sold to Hutchison 3G and the Orange Austria brand was terminated.

In November 2008, Orange launched five Orange Cinema Series channels. To do so, Orange bought the exclusive rights from Warner Bros. for first runs of all new films, previously held by TPS Star (a subsidiary of the Canal+ Group), as well as all films in its catalogue and rights to the film catalogues of Gaumont, HBO and MGM. Orange also secured exclusive rights to broadcast Saturday evening Ligue 1 football matches from the French Football Federation. Free accused Orange of tied-selling as the Orange channels were only available to its subscribers. In June 2008, the firm abandoned a €27 billion bid for Swedish operator TeliaSonera after the two companies failed to agree terms.

In 2008, Orange was given permission from Apple to sell the iPhone in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange's African markets. On 8 September 2009, Orange and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom announced they were in advanced talks to merge their UK operations to create the largest mobile operator with 37% of the market. Both T-Mobile and Orange brands were kept due to differences in their targeted markets. T-Mobile remained the budget-conscious offering and Orange the premium one, although there was some overlap as of February 2011.

On 5 April 2009, Orange won an Arbitration Court case against Orascom Telecom, forcing Orascom to transfer its stake in Mobinil to Orange at a price of per Mobinil share. On 28 October 2009, Orange changed the name of its Luxembourgish telecommunication company VOXMobile to Orange. On 5 November 2009, Orange Armenia launched telecommunication services in Armenia. On 11 December 2009, Egypt's regulator approved an offer from a unit of France Telecom (Orange) to buy Mobinil. In 2010, Orange's CEO, Didier Lombard, was replaced by Stéphane Richard. The company was also reorganised internally, most notably with the arrival of former Culture Minister Christine Albanel as head of communications for the group. In mid-April 2010, Orange UK announced that it would outsource the management of its broadband network to BT. This announcement was greeted positively by broadband commentators, who felt that the move was likely to improve Orange's broadband quality and customer services.

On 2 March 2012, Didier Lombard, who remained special advisor to Stéphane Richard, left the company. His departure was shadowed by controversy over his stock options: he was suspected of having stayed with the company longer to wait for the France Telecom share to recover and then exercise his stock option. The share was trading at around €16, whereas his stock options were at €23. On 3 February 2012, Hutchison Whampoa announced that it would buy Orange Austria for US$1.7 billion. The deal closed on 3 January 2013, and the Orange brand was phased out on 19 August 2013, when its operations were merged into 3. In March 2012, France Télécom bought 93.9% of Mobinil, an Egyptian mobile operator, from Naguib Sawiris's Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT) in an effort to double its revenue in MENA by 2015. On 28 May 2013 at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting, shareholders approved changing the name of the group to Orange S.A. This became effective on 1 July 2013. In September 2014, Orange agreed a deal to acquire Spanish firm Jazztel for a fee of around €3.4 billion.

As of October 2018, Orange has teamed up with Google in order to install a transatlantic undersea cable, Dunant, to share data between the United States and France at faster speeds. Planned to begin operation in 2020, the fiber-based cable has a design capacity of 250 terabits per second (Tbit/s) and will span approximately 6600 kilometers in length.

in July 2020, Orange launched a satellite-based home broadband service utilising the Eutelsat Konnect satellite.

Shareholders

The major shareholders of Orange as of 31 December 2015 are the state of France through Agence des participations de l'État and Banque publique d'investissement (replacing Fonds stratégique d'investissement) for 23.04%. As of mid-2013, Orange employees owned 4.81%, and the company itself owned 0.58%.

Operations

Mobile

Orange is the sole brand used in the marketing of the company's mobile offers; the Itineris, Ola and Mobicarte brands have been combined since 2001, and Mobicarte became a special prepaid calling offer. As of 31 December 2010, Orange has 150 million mobile customers worldwide, 17.9% of whom are in France. Orange France is the leading mobile telecommunications operator in France, with a market share of 45.38% as of 2 November 2009.

The Orange brand name was licensed to a number of operators which Orange S.A. did not own, these include:

Landline and Internet

Orange took over the landline and Internet businesses of France Telecom and Wanadoo in 2006. Since then, Orange is the sole brand of France Telecom for landline and Internet services worldwide, with a few exceptions, such as Mobistar in Belgium and TPSA in Poland. Orange's triple-play broadband Internet offers are supplied through the Livebox. As of 31 December 2010, Orange has 13.7 million broadband ADSL customers worldwide, 67% of whom are in France40.

The Livebox is the ADSL modem supplied to Orange's ADSL and FTTH customers in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain and Tunisia, and to WiMAX customers in Cameroon. It serves as a bridge between the Internet access and the home network through several communication interfaces (Bluetooth, Ethernet, Wi-Fi). The Livebox has evolved over time. The Livebox 1.0 was replaced by version 1.1, the Mini Livebox, followed by the Livebox 2.0. The newest version was scheduled to be rolled out 2012 41. The Livebox is offered on a monthly contract for €3 per month or for purchase for €59. Number of Liveboxes rented in 2008: 7.3 million, a 12.3% increase in one year.

Broadcasting

Beginning in 2003, Orange's strategy has centred on the acquisition, creation and diffusion of content. This starts with the creation of MaLigne.tv in 2003, later renamed Orange TV, an ADSL television access service and a video on demand service. In 2004, Orange organises a television access service for mobile phones. In 2007, Orange creates and, in 2008, enters into a partnership with France Televisions to broadcast pre-recorded programming from the public national television and to roll out theme channels for sports, cinema and television series. Dubbed Content Everywhere in 2008, the content access strategy is announced simultaneously with the launch of the Orange cinema series television channels, and aims to offer customers access to all of the company's content, anywhere and from any device.

OCS

Orange Cinema Series is launched 13 November 2008, along with Orange Sport; it comprises five channels devoted to movies (Orange Ciné Max, Ciné Happy, Ciné Choc, Ciné Novo, Ciné Géant). The channels primarily show films from the Warner Bros. and HBO catalogues. Orange installs additional VOD services on its channels, allowing viewers to watch programmes broadcast in the previous 30 days whenever they like, as well as supplementary programmes from the previous month.

Orange Sport

Orange Sport is launched 13 November 2008. Orange secures the broadcast rights for the Saturday evening lineup of Ligue 1 matches from season 2008/2009 to season 2011/2012, and the rights to home matches of eight Serie A clubs (Sampdoria, Atalanta, Chievo, Reggina, Siena, Palermo, Udinese and Napoli). The acquisition of these rights marks the start of competition for sports programs with the Canal+ group.

Video on demand

Orange offers services for video on demand access using the Orange decoder, a computer or a mobile phone. Orange offers free programming from the catalogues of available works of France Television, M6 and TF1 for one week after their initial broadcast.

Online entertainment

In 1997, France Telecom created Goa, an online entertainment subsidiary. The site is launched as a platform for players of massively multiplayer online games. In 2002, Goa acquires the operating license for Dark Age of Camelot. In 2007 Goa ceases to be a subsidiary and is merged into Orange. In 2009 Orange refocuses Goa.com on online entertainment and gradually ceases to operate massively multiplayer online games. In August 2010, goa.com disappears to become the Orange Jeux portal.

Music

: Created by Orange in 2008, Liveradio is a free, live, on-demand IP radio streaming service. Users gain access through this service to more than 10,000 FM and web radio stations and 11,000 podcasts from 100 countries.

Subsidiaries, joint ventures and holdings

Orange is a communications access provider offering customers access through multiple platforms. The four key platforms Orange operates are:
#fixed line telephone, mainly in France and Poland.
#broadband access.
#mobile phone telephony.
#most recently, IPTV, though currently only in France, Spain, Poland and Slovakia, known as Orange TV.

France Télécom merged the different internal divisions managing each platform and now all operate under the Orange brand.

Orange Business Services

Orange is present in the U.S. through its Orange Business Services division and its venture capital historical partner Innovacom as well as two R&D labs: one in Boston, Massachusetts and the other in South San Francisco, California.

''OpenTransit'' is Orange's backbone network. It covers Europe, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and loops back to Paris.

BT Group

Orange and Deutsche Telekom merged their UK businesses in 2010 to form a joint venture branded as EE. In December 2014, Orange were in talks with BT Group regarding the acquisition of EE for an estimated £12.5bn. On 5 February 2015, it was announced that BT would be acquiring EE in a £12.5bn deal, in which Orange S.A would take a 4% stake in the BT Group. The acquisition of EE was completed 29 January 2016.

Globecast

Globecast is a provider of transmission of satellite and production services for professional broadcast, online content and enterprise multimedia. GlobeCast World TV is a division of Globecast. In 2012, Globecast also began launching a direct to home OTT IPTV service called MyGlobeTV in the United States using NetGem set top boxes. The MyGlobeTV service was discontinued In December 2013.

Viaccess Orca

Viaccess Orca is a provider of IPTV and OTT TV service platforms and security services. It is headquartered in Paris La Defense. Viaccess-orca acquired Squadeo company in 2017 and is able to supply video secured player. Viaccess Orca is also involved in content tracking over internet, providing anti-piracy services.

Orange Labs

Orange Labs (formerly France Télécom R&D) is the research and development division of Orange. This division was derived from different previous entities, such as CNET (Centre national d'études des télécommunications) created in 1944, the CCETT created in 1972, as well as other entities. In 2007, France Télécom R&D became known as Orange Labs, a global network of R&D entities.

CCETT/France Télécom R&D contributed to various international standards, such as ISO/IEC MPEG and JPEG standards or DAB and DVB standards. CCETT, IRT and Philips developed a digital audio two-channel compression system known as Musicam or MPEG Audio Layer II (Emmy Award in Engineering 2000).

In 2010, Orange devoted 1.9% of its revenue, or €845 million, to research and development. Since January 2007 Orange has unified its research laboratories and technocentres in the Orange Labs network. As of 31 December 2010 Orange held a portfolio of 7,892 patents, 327 which were filed in 2010. Orange employs 3,700 people in research and development per year throughout the organisation, including more than 200 doctoral candidates and post-doctorates. Orange's research and development is based on partnerships with industry, suppliers and operators, universities and schools, academic institutes and research programs such as the following:

Two types of infrastructure coexist in Orange's research and development: the research laboratories and the technocentres. The latter are responsible for Orange innovationsLaurent, Barbotin. France Télécom Le dinosaure se réveille. L'Expansion, January 2007, n°715, p84 and consist of multidisciplinary teams of researchers, engineers, and marketing and sales personnel.

Cityvox

Cityvox is a network of websites with local content (restaurants, cultural happenings, etc.) created in 1999. Orange purchased the network site in 2008.

Deezer

In late August 2010 Orange acquired an 11% share in the streaming site Deezer. With this acquisition, the operator offered its subscribers a new "Deezer Premium" option: paid streaming music service with no advertising and 7 million titles.

Dailymotion

On 25 January 2011 Orange announced the acquisition of 49% of Dailymotion, a French online video platform, at a cost of €58.8 million. The group also secured an option to acquire all of the shares in the platform in 2013. This is indicative of a new strategy by Orange, which seeks to offer a full range of multi-screen video to its subscribers.

Studio 37

Created in 2007 co-produces and acquires films, unlike the Canal+ Group's StudioCanal. The producer Frédérique Dumas starts the studio, which has an initial budget of 30 million Euros. For its growth, Orange negotiates exclusivity agreements with Warner, HBO, Fidélité Films and Gaumont, ensuring a stream of films for its TV Orange Cinema Series package. In 2011, Studio 37 co-produced The Artist which went on to win best picture and four further awards at the 84th Academy Awards. This makes it the first silent film to win an award since the original ceremony in 1929.

Cloudwatt

Cloudwatt is a cloud services provider set up in 2012 by Orange (44%), the French government through Caisse des Dépôts (33%) and Thales (22%). In March 2015, Orange acquired all remaining shares of Cloudwatt to strengthen its enterprise cloud services offering.

Aire

In January 2019 Orange acquired a minority shareholding in Aire Labs, a credit data platform in the UK.

SecureData

In February 2019 Orange acquired UK cybersecurity provider SecureData for an undisclosed sum, merging it with Orange Cyberdefense Division.

SecureLink

Orange acquired SecureLink, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity company, in 2019 for €515 million.

SUMA Movil

In November 2019 Orange España, a subsidiary of Orange, acquired SUMA Móvil Spain from Grupo-Ingenium for an undisclosed sum.

Telekom Romania

In early August 2020 Orange reached an agreement with the Ministry of Communications and Information Society (MCSI) to purchase Telekom Romania and establish a new telecommunications entity. As part of this agreement, the Romanian government would own a 20% stake in the new entity, and Orange would take over fixed operations. The MCSI had first entered talks to sell Telekom Romania in September 2019, when Deutsche Telekom announced that it was prepared to sell its stake in Telekom Romania to Orange.

Future4care

In June 2021, Orange partners with Sanofi, Capgemini and Generali to launch Future4care. This all-European start-up accelerator will help develop upcoming companies focused on digital health.

Controversies

Staff suicides

Between the beginning of January 2008 and April 2011, more than 60 France Télécom employees committed suicide, (in 2008 and the early part of 2009 there were 25 ) some leaving notes blaming stress and misery at work. In October 2009, the wave of suicides led former Deputy CEO Louis-Pierre Wenes to resign under trade union pressure, to be replaced by Stéphane Richard. Faced with repeated suicides, the company promoted Stéphane Richard to chief executive officer on 1 February 2010, while Didier Lombard remained as chairman.

The suicide rate among France Télécom's 102,000 domestic employees is 15.3 per year, compared with an average of 14.7 suicides per 100,000 in the French population as a whole.

Following an investigation, the Inspection du travail (Labour Inspection) told the labour union Sud-PTT that the work organisation at France Télécom "was conducive to generating suffering at work" and "health risks" for employees. An investigation was conducted by the audit firm Technologia at the request of France Télécom's management. Of the 102,843 employees in the group's parent company, 80,080 responded, i.e. a response rate of 77.9%. The fact-finding report revealed a "very poor general feeling", "strained physical and mental health", and a "tense and even violent working environment" for some categories of personnel. Working conditions were deemed difficult, mainly for personnel in charge of sales and "customer interventions". Given heavy media coverage, these findings were the source of major contention about working conditions.

On 20 December 2019, former CEO Didier Lombard and Orange were found guilty of moral harassment towards their employees.

Access to some sites limited

In 2011, following complaints by Internet users, Megaupload accused Orange of not providing sufficient connectivity to its site, thus severely limiting throughput from France, an allegation Orange denied.

Accusations of false advertising in France

In November 2009, three users lodged a complaint against Orange for false advertising concerning its "Unlimited 3G Key" service. These customers criticised the operator for the misleading way in which this service is presented, since it isn't in fact unlimited. While it is true that there is no time limit, the user cannot download more than 1 gigabyte per month, thus limiting browsing. Unaware of this, the three plaintiffs browsed beyond plan limits and had to pay additional fees as a result.

Corruption in Tunisia

In March 2011, the information website OWNI uncovered a questionable financial deal that enabled the Orange group to acquire a 3G license.

Anticompetitive practices in French overseas departments

On 28 July 2011, the Competition Authority fined France Télécom €27.6 million for having improperly impeded the development of new competing operators in the French overseas departments (primarily Réunion).Entente sur le marché de la téléphonie mobile
Autorité de la concurrence, 2005

France Télécom used its dominant position, resulting in particular from its former monopoly, to take unfair advantage of its competitors.

The practices identified by the Authority were:
* excessive rate levels
* as operators of the quasi-totality of the telecommunication infrastructure local loops, making use of the data which they have access to, France Télécom has targeted former subscribers who had switched to a competitor, in order to win them back, offering them specific deals.
* margin squeeze on broadband Internet offers
* maintaining call barring services inconsistent with the prior selection of an alternative operator

SMS and MMS propagation of 1 January 2011 in France

On 1 January 2011, Orange users' SMS and MMS were sent and billed multiple times. The operator agreed to reimburse the excess costs to consumers, explaining that the error came from a "third party operator" (which turned out to be Bouygues Telecom), said not to have sent acknowledgements, which caused the messages to be resent. A computer problem at the Bouygues platform was blamed.Articl
« Comment les opérateurs expliquent le «bégaiement» de textos »
paru le 3 January 2011 sur le site Internet du quotidien ''Libération''. During the night of 31 December 2010 to 1 January 2011, more than 930 million text messages were exchanged in France (for the three operators combined), setting a new record compared with the peaks of the previous years.Articl
« Plus de 930 millions de SMS envoyés pour le Nouvel An »
paru le 3 January 2011 sur le site Internet du quotidien ''Libération''.

Controversies in UK regarding the quality of service

On 21 March 2007 ''Watchdog'', a television series by the BBC
...