IIRC, this was the first attempt by Hutchison Whampoa, a big Hong Kong company, to enter the UK. They gave up on this and eventually started Three, who are now one of the biggest mobile networks in the UK.
I remember them trying to sell Rabbit when I was a kid, and even I was bemused. Why would I want to stand outside a hotspot in a shop when I could use a phone booth?
France Telecom bought Orange (then a UK company) and decided several years laters to rebrand the french "Itineris" mobile brand "Orange" and progressively did the same across most of its business lines, both domestic and abroad.
Everything from landlines to datacenters to service centers is operated under a unified brand, Orange, originally stemming from this UK mobile operator.
(I think there's a few things here and there such as live tv broadcast that have not been rebranded but I'm not entirely which and why).
The "France Telecom" brand has, I think, completely disappeared.
Funnily enough, through hoops of corporate history and divestment, there are now completely separated business entities in completely different sectors than telcos that operate under the "Orange" brand, such as Orange Bank in several countries, mostly sub-saharan Africa, that do not have anything todo with Orange/France Telecom anymore.
Three is so horrible though. I had them in Ireland and they put all our internet traffic behind a super slow proxy so they could ban porn and gambling, none of which is required by Irish law.
Then you had to go to the shop with photo ID to get unblocked. Also their support was absolutely terrible, their agents were so dumb. One time I had an issue with logging into their web portal (to change my plan) from my computer and their agent insisted they needed to put my handset in for service (which worked fine, of course). I asked for their supervisor and they said the same. They were real scriptmonkeys.
At that point I simply unlocked my handset and switched to vodafone.
I remember them trying to sell Rabbit when I was a kid, and even I was bemused. Why would I want to stand outside a hotspot in a shop when I could use a phone booth?