Wanadoo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wanadoo is the former name of the ISP division of Orange SA, which is a subsidiary of France Télécom. It operates in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Mauritius, Madagascar, Lebanon & Jordan. It ceased to operate as a worldwide brand on 1 June 2006, when it was replaced by Orange.
The origin of the name Wanadoo is subject to some controversy, as some maintain it came about in the late 1990s when many internet companies competed to choose 'Yahoo' sounding names. However it might be that the name Wanadoo first appeared in an internal project at France Télécom, much in line with a number of other such projects such as Intranoo, Tatoo, Netatoo and @noo.
Wanadoo was floated on the stock market on 18 July 2000. In 2000, Wanadoo also took over the major British ISP Freeserve, which had previously been part of the Dixons Group (now DSG International plc). Following the buy-out, Freeserve maintained its own branding for a while before finally changing to the Wanadoo name on 28 April 2004. [1]
Wanadoo changed to Orange on 1st of June 2006 to simplify branding by France Télécom: this merging of companies has created a single brand offering mobile telecommunications and internet services.
Orange is currently the largest ISP in Europe (counting the subscribers of Telekomunikacja Polska) with over ten million subscribers, largely concentrated in France, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland.
