New Orange boss plans to boost mobile broadband

The new boss of communications giant Orange has outlined plans to improve on mobile broadband, communications, and customer service

A recent report highlighted the fact that communications giant Orange had missed out on the opportunity to boost its mobile broadband customer base by focussing too much on fixed line broadband. However, the new boss of Orange has now outlined plans to improve on not only its mobile broadband service, but also its mobile phone business and its customer service levels.Tom Alexander, the former chief executive of Virgin Mobile, joined Orange last year, and has big plans for the company, which has slipped from the fastest growing mobile phone network in the UK to third place behind O2 and Vodafone. He said that he plans to increase investment into 3G networks so that mobile broadband users can enjoy up to 7.2Mbps. He aims to make this available in thirty major cities within the next eighteen months.

Orange is currently encouraging customers to sign up to a two year mobile broadband service by offering a free laptop at Carphone Warehouse stores, but Alexander will also be looking to offer a wider range of laptops through Orange stores later this year. The company will also be increasing the size of its stores in order to stock more laptops to accommodate the growing popularity of mobile broadband.

There are a number of other areas in which Alexander plans to make improvements, including mobile phone customer base levels and customer service levels. He is set to halt plans to outsource the call centre to India in order to ensure high quality customer service. He said: “Orange had a strategy to offshore the vast majority, if not all, its call centres and we have stopped that. We got good service from the call centres in India, but we believe we can have brilliant service from our UK-based call centres. That is what Orange should be, it should be brilliant.”