this will make little difference to my high street. The Orange store long ago turned into a 3 store. Which is a bit ironic given the terrible 3G signal round my area.

I only hope T-Mobile had good customer care and this rubs off on Orange, and not the other way round. Orange's recent handling of their long standing customers who wanted to know when the N97 was finally going to arrive has been terrible.

What I don't understand is why we even need high street mobile phone shops...

Why not close the lot of them and spend the money instead on improving the 3g Network.

Hmmm so is this the harbinger of further mergers? What about a merger between Vodaphone and 3 as has happened elsewhere?

The real problem is less competition means fewer high street deals!