Bridge Mobile Alliance and FreeMove to establish alliance-to-alliance cooperation

Combined global footprint covers 38 countries and about 400 million customers Focus of cooperation is to create benefits for roaming and services for multi-national enterprise customers

FreeMove, the mobile telecommunications alliance between Orange, TeliaSonera, TIM (Telecom Italia Group) and T-Mobile, and Bridge Mobile Alliance today announce the two alliances have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to pave the way for establishing an alliance-to-alliance cooperation across their combined global footprint.

Bridge Mobile Alliance is Asia Pacific’s largest mobile alliance covering 10 markets and over 130 million customers. Together with FreeMove, Europe’s leading mobile alliance, the alliances’ cooperation would cover 38 countries and about 400 million customers across Europe, Americas and Asia.

The focus of the alliances’ cooperation would be to create benefits for more seamless roaming experience by users when they roam on the alliances’ members’ networks, and to provide multi-national enterprise customers with global services and one-stop shopping capability across continents. The cooperation will also evaluate opportunities for knowledge sharing between the two alliances.

Paolo Murri, Chairman of the FreeMove Management Board commented: “Business between Europe and Asia keeps growing and so is the demand for mobile services by companies and travelers. We assume that this trend will continue and foresee the opportunity for FreeMove and Bridge Mobile Alliance to be the first to offer a global approach to those customers with a presence in both continents.”

Lim Chuan Poh, Chairman of the Bridge Mobile Alliance said: “It is our vision that an alliance cooperation between FreeMove and Bridge Mobile Alliance will create benefits to customers such as better quality of service when they roam, and getting access to more value added offers from the alliances. Enterprises with global offices could also benefit from the cooperation by joint offerings from the alliances. By leveraging the combined strengths of the alliances, we would have a unique position to better serve our customers and also our members.”