HSDPA access initially restricted to Web'n'Walk Plus customers and above. Merger with Orange UK On 8 September 2009 France Télécom's Orange and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom announced they were in advanced talks to merge their UK operations to create the largest mobile operator with 37% of the market. The long-term future of either brand was unclear, though EE stated that both would be retained for the first eighteen months at least. In 2013, parent company EE began to withdraw the T-Mobile brand, with the website closed and redirected to EE. As of February 2015, new T-Mobile connections are no longer possible for new customers, T-Mobile active sims remain supported by EE. Consumer Focus and the Communications Consumer Panel sent a joint letter to the then Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes in December 2009 asking for the merger to be investigated by authorities in the United Kingdom, rather than Brussels. The British Office of Fair Trading joined this call by asking the EU to allow it to investigate the proposed deal in February 2010, saying that it believed the merger could have a 'significant' effect on competition. On 1 March 2010 the European Commission approved the merger, on the condition that the combined company sell 25% of the spectrum it owns on the 1800 MHz radio band and amend a network sharing agreement with smaller rival 3. On 1 April 2010 Deutsche Telekom and France Télécom finalised the deal and completed the merger of their UK based operations, causing Orange UK and T-Mobile UK to cease to exist as companies, although they continued as brands. On 11 May 2010 it was announced that both the Orange and T-Mobile brands would remain on British high streets, although their new merged parent company will be called EE. In September 2012, T-Mobile's parent company EE announced that all Orange and T-Mobile stores were to be re-branded as 'EE' stores by 30 October 2012, the launch date of their 4G network, offering products from all three brands of the company. As a result, there are around 700 EE stores open in the UK. As of February 2015, EE stores only offer EE products, with T-Mobile services withdrawn. T-Mobile's UK network was also used as the backbone network behind Virgin Mobile UK (the world's first virtual mobile operator), for both 2G and 3G signals. Post-merger, Virgin Mobile continued to run on the EE network until they migrated