Orange picks up three awards including Best Mobile Operator at the World Communication Awards 2011

Orange awarded Best Mobile Operator and Orange Business receives Best New Service and the New Shores award

Orange was awarded three of the telecom industry’s highest accolades, and highly commended in two other awards at Monday night’s annual World Communication Awards (WCA), held in London.  

Orange was awarded Best Mobile Operator while Orange Business picked up the Best New Service award for the launch of the Business VPN Galerie cloud service, and the New Shores award for its work with Ministries of Foreign Affairs around the world.  Orange Business was also highly commended in the Project of the Year (for its Flexible 4 Business cloud partnership) and Best Global Operator categories.

Tony Lavender, CEO at Plum Consulting and WCA Chair of Judges said, “Orange and Orange Business developed many impressive entries this year, and they were worthy of their success in the categories of Best Mobile Operator, Best New Enterprise Service, The New Shores award and their achievement of “highly commended” in the categories of Best Global Operator and Project of the year. The judges praised the positive customer response, strong financials, and innovative new services that were evident across Orange’s entries this year.”

The judges awarded Orange the Best Mobile Operator based on impressive financial results, strong testimonials, effective partnerships with device manufacturers, and the strength of the Orange brand globally.

Vincent Brunet, VP, Mobile Broadband & Marketing at Orange, commented, “It is an absolute honour to accept these awards on behalf of everyone at Orange around the world. We are pleased that our tireless work to become the best mobile operator has received industry-wide recognition at the World Communication Awards 2011.”

Business VPN Galerie, a service based on the cloud-ready network of Orange Business, was named Best New Service. Business VPN Galerie is the world’s first hub linking Orange VPN customers directly to the world of cloud service providers ensuring access, performance, and high level of security at lower costs than through leased lines. Application suppliers connect to Orange via a dedicated line, which then distributes the applications on demand, making it seamlessly part of a customer’s VPN. Orange launched Business VPN Galerie to facilitate software as a service adoption by providing security and performance guarantees.

Orange Business won the New Shores Award based on its exemplary work with Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MoFAs), an elite group of organizations with mission-critical communications needs. MoFAs are using increasingly complex applications that must be supported by a secure, stable, real-time, collaborative and ubiquitous network. Orange Business is the ideal provider with the world’s largest MPLS IP VPN reaching 177 countries, including the emerging markets, and currently serves 13 MoFAs around the world.

Vivek Badrinath, CEO, Orange Business, commented, “I share these awards with all Orange employees. Winning industry recognition at the World Communication Awards makes me very proud of them, as they show extraordinary dedication and remarkable creative energy while supporting our customers wherever they do business. I am particularly pleased with these awards because they highlight two areas where Orange Business really shines. The award received for our Business VPN Galerie highlights how we are leveraging our cloud-ready network to provide enterprises with simpler, safer and more flexible cloud services. The New Shores Award reflects how Orange Business provides innovative managed services to highly demanding customers in both emerging markets and geographically remote locations, where risk protection and business continuity are key. The Best Mobile Operator award won by Orange is also a great milestone on our roadmap to deliver the workspace of the future.”

Celebrating 13 years of corporate and personal success in global communications, the World
Communication Awards, recognises significant achievements and developments in the global telecoms industry.

About Orange
France Telecom-Orange isone of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with 170,000 employees worldwide, including 102,000 employees in France, and sales of 33.8 billion euros in the first nine months of 2011. Present in 35 countries, the Group had a customer base of 221 million customers at 30 September 2011, including 145 million customers under the Orange brand, the Group's single brand for internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the company operates. At 30September 2011, the Group had 162 million mobile customers and 14 million broadband internet (ADSL, fibre) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

With its industrial project, "conquests 2015", Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group's ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.
For more information (on the internet and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv
Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Brand Services Limited, Orange France or France Telecom.