LONDON -- Orange and BT Wholesale today announced a strategic agreement under which BT Wholesale will provide wholesale landline services to Orange customers who subscribe to its newly launched Home Max broadband package. It marks the first time that Orange has offered fixed line services to its personal customers.

The agreement allows Orange to offer a fixed line telephony service under its own brand, which is provided, managed and maintained by BT Wholesale. The deal supports Orange’s strategy to offer mobile, broadband, fixed and entertainment services from a single provider.

Orange becomes the latest major customer to partner with BT Wholesale around a managed network solution. Since the launch of BT Wholesale’s managed services strategy one year ago, BT Wholesale has landed a series of major, long term managed services partnerships with some of the UK’s biggest communications providers, amounting to around £1 billion in revenue.

Under the terms of today’s agreement, Orange has selected a suite of integrated services from BT Wholesale’s White Label Managed Services portfolio. BT Wholesale will provide Orange with a managed service for all of its fixed line telephony requirements, consisting of wholesale line rental, wholesale calls, and end to end customer management. This includes the set up and ongoing management of Orange’s customer call centres, specifically to provide its customers with telephone support around fixed line calls.

Asif Aziz, Director of Home Products, Orange said, “It is our goal to provide mobile, broadband, fixed line and TV to every house in Britain. This is an important step in making that a reality by providing our customers with all of their communication needs from one supplier. The agreement enables us to provide our customers with all their home services in one bill, with additional customer service needed to support this addition to our product portfolio.”

BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)