Orange is set to take a bold step Tuesday with the launch of its consumer digital media usage index, an ongoing report showing exactly how UK customers use Orange services and media.

The initial index is primarily focused on mobile services including messaging, games, music, TV and the mobile internet but going forward it will include the whole range of Orange’s entertainment and communications services, including broadband.

The first index, due for release on Tuesday, covers data collected between January and March.

Eden Zoller and Jonathan Arber, analysts with Ovum, welcomed the initiative, as mobile operators and service providers in general are typically very reluctant to provide information on customer usage patterns.

Ovum has seen the report and picked out some snippets of information. The index shows that the Orange World portal had just over 2 million unique visitors each month and 70 million page impressions per month. “This underscores a wider trend in terms of growth in mobile internet services and it is interesting that the mobile portal now attracts half as many visitors as the fixed site,” said Ovum.

Sony Ericsson and Nokia handsets were by far the most popular brands for consuming TV and video, however Orange did not give overall numbers for how many mobile TV and video subscribers it has.

Music download numbers are fairly robust at just over 250,000 downloads per month, although this figure includes ringtones and videos as well as full tracks.

“Most operators lack the confidence to lay them selves open in the way that Orange has with its digital media index, but we hope that Orange has set an example that others will follow. It is only by making public this kind of data that the fixed and mobile broadband industry can get a proper handle on the growth, or lack of it, of new multimedia services,” said Ovum.