Following the official merging of the two companies to form Everything Everywhere, the networks themselves will also merge.

What does this mean, if you are an Orange or T-Mobile subscriber?

Quite simply, from next month you will be able to roam across both networks.

The service will go live on the 5^th October.

Tom Alexander, chief executive of Everything Everywhere said: “[the] automated roaming to the best of the two signals would be in place by early next year.”

He added: “It will be just as though the phone is roaming abroad, but in the UK.”

The agreement between Orange and T-Mobile who, up till now have been operating separately despite the merger at board level, only applies to the so-called 2G services. This is voice calls and text messaging. Data services such as web browsing are not affected.

Everything Everywhere will be hoping for a smooth transition with the network merger as experts believe the quality of the signal on offer to customers will be paramount.

The company also said that it plans to start building a Long Term Evolution mobile network next year. This should provide more robust connectivity, faster connection speeds and will be able to cope with the increase in network traffic.

The first LTE-compatible handsets are expected in 2012.

The merger between Orange and T-Mobile automatically gave the new parent company around 30 million customers. However Everything Everywhere has insisted that the brand names will continue.