imran*

Yes, yes – the 2.0 suffix is way overused. We (Orange) currently have 2.75m Livebox wireless routers installed in homes across Europe, with around 275’000 of those installed here in the UK. That looks like success, however we’re currently in the midst of a broadband price war; Sky, Orange and Carphone Warehouse have driven the consumer cost of broadband to zero in the UK.

So where can operators like Orange begin to add additional value to a plain old broadband line? Music? TV? Cellphones? Free Calls? Everyone’s selling the same bundles. But how about just making that broadband line really useful and helping regular broadband-y activities become a little better – empower users to do the things they’re already doing, but better. Some ideas…

• Orange Metro – turn 2.75m Liveboxes into the world’s biggest wifi hotzone, squishing FON, Wibiki and Placesight.
• Orange Mediabox – a thin-client that can backup your computers, download torrents, share iTunes libraries and serve your files anywhere on the Web…something like this?
• Orange Me – a place to manage store, share and syndicate your data, personas and relationships.

Users aren’t going to buy their connectivity, communications and entertainment from one provider – so it’s perhaps sensible to grant them the freedom to unbundle – there’s still much value to be added to broadband.