Virgin and Carphone plan French kiss

Carphone Warehouse and Virgin are to cross the Channel for a joint telephony venture.

The pair have confirmed they are in talks to set up an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) in France, using the Virgin Mobile brand and piggybacking on Orange's network in that country.

The two mobile players will reveal more details about the operation "in due course", they said.

Fellow MVNO easyMobile is also spreading its brand within Europe, announcing the launch of a Dutch operation. The no-frills operator set up shop in Germany earlier this year, following on from a UK debut in March.

According to a recent report from research firm Analysys, the growth in MVNOs will continue as 3G services spread, due to an increase in capacity. A separate study by analyst house Yankee Group recently predicted that MVNOs will generate $10.7bn in service revenues by 2010.