Orange Labs in the UK
Among its 18 Orange Labs on three continents, France Telecom created a centre
in Chiswick, West London in 2001, in order to carry out telecommunications research
and development to support its important UK market. The Bristol based Research
and Innovation Department was acquired in 2005. Approximately 65 staff now conduct
research, development, strategic market intelligence and trialling activities
across 2 UK sites. The larger London site undertakes most research, development
and management activities whilst the smaller Bristol site is co-located with Orange's
network testbed and primarily conducts prototype trial and hosting activities.
The UK Labs has undertaken design and development of many new user interfaces
for Orange phones and web applications.
The Orange labs' work is visible on many Orange phones. For example, the Homescreen
project designed the strongly Orange branded and easy to use handset home screen
which re-enforces Orange's brand values and drives service usage.
The laboratory works closely with the group's local business units. In 2006,
the Labs in London was chosen to become an Orange Developer's Centre supporting
the Orange Partners Programme (
www.orangepartner.com).
seamless mobility and IP services
The Orange Labs in the UK is recognised for the skills it has developed in the
area of seamless mobility- the movement of customers' communications between different
access technologies (GSM, 3G, WiFi etc) without their intervention and without
disturbance to their ongoing calls and data sessions.
The UK team has developed architectures and software for the seamless hand-over
of both voice and data services.