The UK arm of France Telecom’s Orange has launched what it says is the first contactless mobile phone-based payment services, allowing customers to make purchases up to the value of £15. The service has been developed in conjunction with Barclaycard, and will use the credit card firm’s network of contactless readers, deployed in more than [...]

Huawei’s announcement on Monday of its first big UK equipment deal has kicked off speculation that the Chinese vendor is now poised to roll out 4G/LTE services in the country too. The four year deal with T-Mobile and Orange parent Everything Everywhere will involve a major upgrade of the UK telco’s 2G radio network, allowing it to carry 3G data services over the spectrum assigned for 2G use.

France Telecom’s mobile unit, Orange, has integrated Microsoft’s flagship mobile OS with its own billing platform, allowing users of Windows Phone 7 devices to add the cost of content purchased to their mobile phone bill.

Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile have announced their intention to launch NFC mobile payment services in the UK by 2012. Near-field communications (NFC) has been building a head of steam in recent months, with the likes of Google, RIM and Visa announcing their support.

Ericsson has announced that the project to merge the UK 3G networks of T-Mobile and 3 has been completed, with more than 12,000 sites consolidated. The two carriers created a third party organisation, Mobile Broadband Network Ltd (MBNL) in 2007 to run the joint network, with Ericsson the primary service provider to MBNL.

According to Thierry Zylberberg, Executive Vice President and Head of Orange Healthcare Division at France Telecom, ‘mobile healthcare’ is ‘un mot valise’ – a ’suitcase word’ that combines multiple meanings. During his keynote at Informa’s second annual Mobile Healthcare Industry Summit last week, he confirmed Orange’s ongoing interest in developing new and varied services for the health sector, one example being its ‘Health Gateway’ – a secure web-based platform for SMS-based services such as appointment reminders.

Clouds continue to gather above the telco space with Orange Business Services together with Cisco, EMC and VMware, on Monday launching end-to-end cloud computing services for enterprises.