Orange UK's parent company, France Telecom, has issued its latest fourth quarter results to 31st December 2008, which show that efforts to turn the operators broadband fortunes around have failed to stop customers from leaving. However the rate of decline appears to have been cut in half.

Instead Q4-2008 saw fixed line broadband ADSL subscriber figures drop from 1.023m in Q3-2008 to just 1m (-23,000) in Q4, while also equating to a 12% overall decline in relation to one year earlier (Q4-2007).

Thankfully this reduction does have one positive side, it shows a significant slowing of Orange's decline because the gap between Q2 and Q3-2008 was a lot bigger (-40,000). Similarly 44% of Orange's broadband subscribers are now on its unbundled (LLU) lines, compared with 30% during Q4-2007.