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131-690: Orange has been the corporation's main brand for mobile , landline , internet and Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services since 2006. It traces its origins back to Hutchison Whampoa acquiring a controlling stake in Microtel Communications in 1994 in the United Kingdom . Microtel Communications became a subsidiary of Mannesmann in 1999 and then was acquired by France Télécom in 2000. The former French public monopoly thus became internationalized following this takeover and has pursued an expansionist policy since. The group

262-657: A hostile takeover bid for Mannesmann. Shortly thereafter, in February 2000, Vodafone acquired Mannesmann for US$ 183 billion, and decided to divest Orange because EU regulations would not allow it to hold two mobile licences. In August 2000, France Télécom bought Orange plc from Vodafone for a total estimated cost of €39.7 billion. At the time, France Télécom also bought stakes in several other international firms (GlobalOne, Equant , Internet Telecom, Freeserve , EresMas, NTL and Mobilcom), of which some have since been sold back. Through this process, France Télécom became

393-474: A 10% stake, strong investor demand led Vodafone to nearly double the sale. Bharti Airtel , increased its stake in Indus to about 49% by purchasing around 1% of the shares. Vodafone sold 484.7 million shares at 310-341 rupees each, generating 153 billion rupees. The sale reduced Vodafone's stake in Indus from 21.5% to 3.1%. Following a period of worldwide expansion which began in 1999, in the 2010s Vodafone entered

524-593: A 35% share of Mannesmann , owner of the largest German mobile network. To gain antitrust approval for the merger, Vodafone sold its 17.2% stake in Mannesmann's German competitor, E-Plus . On 21 September 1999, Vodafone agreed to merge its US wireless assets with those of Bell Atlantic Corp to form Verizon . The merger was completed on 4 April 2000, just a few months prior to Bell Atlantic's merger with GTE to form Verizon Communications . In November 1999, Vodafone made an unsolicited bid for Mannesmann, which

655-400: A basic mobile phone, which is only capable of voice calling and text messaging. Feature phones and basic mobile phones tend to use a proprietary, custom-designed software and user interface . By contrast, smartphones generally use a mobile operating system that often shares common traits across devices. The critical advantage that modern cellular networks have over predecessor systems is

786-533: A capital increase from the French State since it was still the majority shareholder, and an additional 15bn in cash from internal savings. On 25 February 2005, Thierry Breton was appointed Minister of Finance and Industry and Didier Lombard , who had been head of the firm's new technologies division, replaced him as CEO. The NeXT scheme was the recovery plan for France Télécom which aimed at, among other things, reducing costs, especially wage costs, carrying on

917-1079: A connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator , which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture, and therefore mobile telephones are called cellphones (or "cell phones") in North America. In addition to telephony , digital mobile phones support a variety of other services , such as text messaging , multimedia messaging , email , Internet access (via LTE , 5G NR or Wi-Fi ), short-range wireless communications ( infrared , Bluetooth ), satellite access ( navigation , messaging connectivity ), business applications, payments (via NFC ), multimedia playback and streaming ( radio , television ), digital photography , and video games . Mobile phones offering only basic capabilities are known as feature phones ( slang : "dumbphones" ); mobile phones that offer greatly advanced computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones . The first handheld mobile phone

1048-618: A controlling stake in Microtel Communications Ltd , which by then had acquired a licence to develop a mobile network in the United Kingdom . Hutchison renamed Microtel to Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd, and on 28 April 1994 the Orange brand was launched in the UK mobile phone market. A holding company structure was adopted in 1995 with the establishment of Orange plc. In April 1996, Orange went public and floated on

1179-409: A converging policy for its products and services, and grouping together all the brands under a single brand, except for the activities dealing with fixed-line telephone which would stay under the designation 'France Télécom'. Consequently, this led to the disappearance of a number of brands. From 1 June 2006, France Télécom tried to commercialise all its products under a single worldwide brand, becoming

1310-434: A customer unit could use. A cellular network mobile phone system gets its name from dividing the service area into many small cells, each with a base station with (for example) a useful range on the order of a kilometer (mile). These systems have dozens or hundreds of possible channels allocated to them. When a subscriber is using a given channel for a telephone connection, that frequency is unavailable for other customers in

1441-593: A deal to acquire Spanish firm Jazztel for a fee of around €3.4 billion. As of October 2018, Orange has teamed up with Google in order to install a transatlantic undersea cable, Dunant , to share data between the United States and France at faster speeds. Planned to begin operation in 2020, the fibre-based cable has a design capacity of 250 terabits per second (Tbit/s) and will span approximately 6600 kilometres in length. in July 2020, Orange launched

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1572-633: A digital audio two-channel compression system known as Musicam or MPEG Audio Layer II ( Emmy Award in Engineering 2000). In 2010, Orange devoted 1.9% of its revenue, or €845 million, to research and development. Since January 2007 Orange has unified its research laboratories and technocentres in the Orange Labs network. As of 31 December 2010 Orange held a portfolio of 7,892 patents, 327 which were filed in 2010. Orange employs 3,700 people in research and development per year throughout

1703-418: A few sets of radio channels (frequencies). Once these few channels were in use by customers, no further customers could be served until another user vacated a channel. It would be impractical to give every customer a unique channel since there would not be enough bandwidth allocated to the mobile service. As well, technical limitations such as antenna efficiency and receiver design limit the range of frequencies

1834-474: A joint venture branded as EE . In December 2014, Orange were in talks with BT Group regarding the acquisition of EE for an estimated £12.5 billion. On 5 February 2015, it was announced that BT would be acquiring EE in a £12.5 billion deal, in which Orange S.A would take a 4% stake in the BT Group. The acquisition of EE was completed on 29 January 2016. Globecast is a provider of managed services for

1965-630: A majority holding, despite disputes by local trade unions. In April 2011, Vodacom rebranded with the Vodafone logo. On 29 December 2003, Vodafone signed a Partner Network Agreement with Kuwait's MTC group. The agreement involved co-operation in Bahrain and the branding of the network as MTC-Vodafone. In November 1998, the Vodafone Egypt network went live under the name Click GSM, and was rebranded to Vodafone in 2002. On 8 November 2006,

2096-475: A mobile device, such as a smartphone. The term "app" is a shortening of the term "software application". A common data application on mobile phones is Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging. The first SMS message was sent from a computer to a mobile phone in 1992 in the UK while the first person-to-person SMS from phone to phone was sent in Finland in 1993. The first mobile news service, delivered via SMS,

2227-401: A number of distinguishing features. The International Telecommunication Union measures those with Internet connection, which it calls Active Mobile-Broadband subscriptions (which includes tablets, etc.). In the developed world, smartphones have now overtaken the usage of earlier mobile systems. However, in the developing world, they account for around 50% of mobile telephony . Feature phone

2358-662: A period of retrenchment and simplification of its operations. On 23 September 2016, Vodafone extended its activities to Cameroon by signing a partnership with Afrimax, a 4G-LTE telecommunications operator in Africa. Vodafone Cameroon Launched a "Youth Program" in the Universities to support and encourage the Cameroonian students. The partnership ceased to operate in September 2017 following the withdrawal of its license by

2489-491: A price of E£441,658 per Mobinil share. On 28 October 2009, Orange changed the name of its Luxembourgish telecommunication company VOXMobile to Orange. On 5 November 2009, Orange Armenia launched telecommunication services in Armenia . On 11 December 2009, Egypt's regulator approved an offer from a unit of France Telecom (Orange) to buy Mobinil. In 2010, Orange's CEO, Didier Lombard, was replaced by Stéphane Richard. The company

2620-639: A primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index . The company has a secondary listing on the NASDAQ as American depositary receipts (ADRs). The name Vodafone comes from vo ice da ta fone (the latter a sensational spelling of " phone "), chosen by the company to "reflect the provision of voice and data services over mobile phones". In 1980, Ernest Harrison , then chairman of Racal Electronics Plc –

2751-501: A problem due to the design of the phone, the quality of the cellular network and compression algorithms used in long-distance calls . Audio quality can be improved using a VoIP application over WiFi . Cellphones have small speakers so that the user can use a speakerphone feature and talk to a person on the phone without holding it to their ear. The small speakers can also be used to listen to digital audio files of music or speech or watch videos with an audio component, without holding

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2882-479: A satellite-based home broadband service utilising the Eutelsat Konnect satellite . The major shareholders of Orange as of 31 December 2015 are the state of France through Agence des participations de l'État and Banque publique d'investissement (replacing Fonds stratégique d'investissement ) for 23.04%. As of mid-2013, Orange employees owned 4.81%, and the company itself owned 0.58%. Orange

3013-503: A shareholding of 65%. In January 2021, Vodafone obtained a license to establish and operate public telecommunications services in Oman . In September 2021 Vodafone in Oman signed an agreement with Ericsson to deploy, operate and maintain 4G and 5G core and radio access (RAN) greenfield network and an agreement with Netcracker Technology to deploy Netcracker Digital BSS. Vodafone will be

3144-464: A single hand, since most thumbs cannot reach the entire screen surface; they may need to be shifted around in the hand, held in one hand and manipulated by the other, or used in place with both hands. Due to design advances, some modern smartphones with large screen sizes and "edge-to-edge" designs have compact builds that improve their ergonomics, while the shift to taller aspect ratios have resulted in phones that have larger screen sizes whilst maintaining

3275-517: A single platform. There are a huge variety of apps, including video games , music products and business tools. Up until that point, smartphone application distribution depended on third-party sources providing applications for multiple platforms, such as GetJar , Handango , Handmark , and PocketGear . Following the success of the App Store, other smartphone manufacturers launched application stores, such as Google's Android Market (later renamed to

3406-429: A small microchip called a Subscriber Identity Module or SIM card , in order to function. The SIM card is approximately the size of a small postage stamp and is usually placed underneath the battery in the rear of the unit. The SIM securely stores the service-subscriber key (IMSI) and the K i used to identify and authenticate the user of the mobile phone. The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing

3537-471: A telephone service area, which is divided up into 'cells'. Each cell uses a different set of frequencies from neighboring cells, and will typically be covered by three towers placed at different locations. The cell towers are usually interconnected to each other and the phone network and the internet by wired connections. Due to bandwidth limitations each cell will have a maximum number of cell phones it can handle at once. The cells are therefore sized depending on

3668-408: A television access service for mobile phones. In 2007, Orange created Studio 37  [ fr ] and, in 2008, entered into a partnership with France Televisions to broadcast pre-recorded programming from the public national television and to roll out themed channels for sports, cinema and television series. Orange dubbed the strategy Content Everywhere in 2008, announcing it simultaneously with

3799-500: A trade agreement with the Chilean Entel PCS Chile, in which Entel PCS has access to the equipment and international services of Vodafone, and Vodafone will be one of the trademarks of Entel for the wireless business. This step will give the Vodafone brand access to a market of over 15 million people, currently divided between two companies: Telefonica Movistar and Entel PCS. In August 2013, Vodafone has started

3930-469: A very thin carbon microphone". Early predecessors of cellular phones included analog radio communications from ships and trains. The race to create truly portable telephone devices began after World War II, with developments taking place in many countries. The advances in mobile telephony have been traced in successive "generations", starting with the early zeroth-generation ( 0G ) services, such as Bell System 's Mobile Telephone Service and its successor,

4061-411: A warring and unsafe country. That was the optical telegraphy network of Claude Chappe . In 1878, after the invention of the electrical telegraph and then the invention of the telephone , the French State created a Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs . Telephone services were nationalised and added to the ministry in 1889. However, it was not until 1923 that the second 'T' (for 'telephones') appeared and

Orange S.A. - Misplaced Pages Continue

4192-428: Is a free, live, on-demand IP radio streaming service. Users gain access through this service to more than 10,000 FM and web radio stations and 11,000 podcasts from 100 countries. Orange is a communications access provider offering customers access through multiple platforms. The four key platforms Orange operates are: France Télécom merged the different internal divisions managing each platform and now all operate under

4323-440: Is a network of websites with local content (restaurants, cultural happenings, etc.) created in 1999. Orange purchased the network site in 2008. In late August 2010 Orange acquired an 11% share in the streaming site Deezer . With this acquisition, the operator offered its subscribers a new "Deezer Premium" option: paid streaming music service with no advertising and 7 million titles. In 2016 Orange sold Deezer to Access Industries ,

4454-412: Is a term typically used as a retronym to describe mobile phones which are limited in capabilities in contrast to a modern smartphone . Feature phones typically provide voice calling and text messaging functionality, in addition to basic multimedia and Internet capabilities, and other services offered by the user's wireless service provider . A feature phone has additional functions over and above

4585-513: Is being used or not) using a technique known as multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the mobile phone to each of several cell towers near the owner of the phone. The movements of a mobile phone user can be tracked by their service provider and, if desired, by law enforcement agencies and their governments. Both the SIM card and the handset can be tracked. China has proposed using this technology to track

4716-540: Is launched as a platform for players of massively multiplayer online games. In 2002, Goa acquires the operating license for Dark Age of Camelot . In 2007 Goa ceases to be a subsidiary and is merged into Orange. In 2009 Orange refocuses Goa.com on online entertainment and gradually ceases to operate massively multiplayer online games. In August 2010, goa.com disappears to become the Orange Jeux portal. Liveradio  [ fr ] : Created by Orange in 2008, Liveradio

4847-655: Is now operates in many countries in Europe , Africa and in the French West Indies . Since February 2012, as a result of the company's decision to transfer its fixed-line telephony activities being to its Orange brand, all offers marketed by France Télécom are Orange -branded; and on July 1, 2013, France Télécom itself was rebranded Orange S.A. . In 2019, Orange S.A. employed nearly 148,000 people worldwide, including 88,000 in France. The corporation has throughout

4978-593: Is the research and development division of Orange. This division was derived from different previous entities, such as CNET ( Centre national d'études des télécommunications ) created in 1944, the CCETT created in 1972, as well as other entities. In 2007, France Télécom R&D became known as Orange Labs, a global network of R&D entities. CCETT/France Télécom R&D contributed to various international standards, such as ISO / IEC MPEG and JPEG standards or DAB and DVB standards. CCETT, IRT and Philips developed

5109-527: Is the sole brand used in the marketing of the company's mobile offers; the Itineris, Ola and Mobicarte brands have been combined since 2001, and Mobicarte became a special prepaid calling offer. As of 31 December 2010, Orange has 150 million mobile customers worldwide, 17.9% of whom are in France. Orange France is the leading mobile telecommunications operator in France, with a market share of 45.38% as of 2 November 2009. The Orange brand name

5240-468: The 5G NR (5G New Radio) standard. 5G can be implemented in low-band, mid-band or high-band millimeter-wave, with download speeds that can achieve gigabit-per-second (Gbit/s) range, aiming for a network latency of 1 ms. This near-real-time responsiveness and improved overall data performance are crucial for applications like online gaming , augmented and virtual reality , autonomous vehicles , IoT, and critical communication services. Smartphones have

5371-623: The CAC 40 , the benchmark stock market index of the top 40 French companies in terms of market capitalisation . In June 2001, the France Telecom Mobile brands Itinéris , OLA , and Mobicarte were replaced by the Orange brand. On 21 November 2003, France Telecom withdrew the 13.7% of Orange's shares traded on the Paris stock exchange . On 2 October 2002, the CEO, Thierry Breton was given

Orange S.A. - Misplaced Pages Continue

5502-477: The Canal+ Group 's StudioCanal . The producer Frédérique Dumas starts the studio, which has an initial budget of 30 million Euros. For its growth, Orange negotiates exclusivity agreements with Warner , HBO , Fidélité Films and Gaumont , ensuring a stream of films for its TV Orange Cinema Series package. In 2011, Studio 37 co-produced The Artist which went on to win best picture and four further awards at

5633-833: The French Football Federation . Free accused Orange of tied-selling as the Orange channels were only available to its subscribers. In June 2008, the firm abandoned a €27 billion bid for Swedish operator TeliaSonera after the two companies failed to agree terms. In 2008, Orange was given permission from Apple to sell the iPhone in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange's African markets. On 8 September 2009, Orange and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom announced they were in advanced talks to merge their UK operations to create

5764-648: The Improved Mobile Telephone Service . These 0G systems were not cellular , supported a few simultaneous calls, and were very expensive. The first handheld cellular mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing 2 kilograms (4.4 lb). The first commercial automated cellular network ( 1G ) analog was launched in Japan by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in 1979. This

5895-787: The Livebox . As of 31 December 2010, Orange has 13.7 million broadband ADSL customers worldwide, 67% of whom are in France40. The Livebox is the ADSL modem supplied to Orange's ADSL and FTTH customers in France , the United Kingdom , the Netherlands , Switzerland , Spain and Tunisia , and to WiMAX customers in Cameroon. It serves as a bridge between the Internet access and

6026-462: The London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ , majority-owned by Hutchison (48.22%), followed by BAe (21.1%). In June 1996, it became the youngest company to enter the FTSE 100 , valued at £2.4 billion. In October 1999, the German conglomerate Mannesmann AG acquired Orange for a price equivalent to €7,900 per customer, i.e. US$ 33 billion. Mannesmann's acquisition of Orange triggered Vodafone to make

6157-888: The Philippines . A pilot project in Bali was launched in 2011 by the International Finance Corporation and an Indonesian bank, Bank Mandiri . Mobile payments were first trialled in Finland in 1998 when two Coca-Cola vending machines in Espoo were enabled to work with SMS payments. Eventually, the idea spread and in 1999, the Philippines launched the country's first commercial mobile payments systems with mobile operators Globe and Smart . Some mobile phones can make mobile payments via direct mobile billing schemes, or through contactless payments if

6288-536: The Premier League team Manchester United F.C. in football from 2000 until the 2005–06 season. In 2007, Vodafone entered into a title sponsorship deal with the McLaren Formula One team (previously Vodafone sponsored Scuderia Ferrari in 2002 until 2006), which traded as "Vodafone McLaren Mercedes" until the sponsorship ended at the end of the 2013 season. On 1 December 2011, it acquired

6419-739: The Reading -based Bluefish Communications Ltd, an ICT consultancy company. The acquired operations formed the nucleus of a new Unified Communications and Collaboration practice within its subsidiary Vodafone Global Enterprise , which was to focus on implementing strategies in cloud computing , and strengthen its professional services offering. In April 2012, Vodafone announced an agreement to acquire Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) for £1.04 billion. The acquisition gave Vodafone access to CWW's fibre network for businesses, enabling it to offer unified communications to enterprises. On 18 June 2012, Cable & Wireless shareholders voted in favour of

6550-649: The WCDMA standard. This was followed by 3.5G or 3G+ enhancements based on the high-speed packet access (HSPA) family, allowing UMTS networks to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity. 3G is able to provide mobile broadband access of several Mbit/s to smartphones and mobile modems in laptop computers. This ensures it can be applied to mobile Internet access, VoIP , video calls, and sending large e-mail messages, as well as watching videos, typically in standard-definition quality. By 2009, it had become clear that, at some point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by

6681-548: The Warner Bros. and HBO catalogues. Orange installs additional VOD services on its channels, allowing viewers to watch programmes broadcast in the previous 30 days whenever they like, as well as supplementary programmes from the previous month. Orange Sport is launched 13 November 2008. Orange secures the broadcast rights for the Saturday evening line-up of Ligue 1 matches from season 2008/2009 to season 2011/2012, and

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6812-450: The internet of things (IoT), fixed wireless access , and multimedia streaming (including music, video, radio , and television ). Deployment of fifth-generation ( 5G ) cellular networks commenced worldwide in 2019. The term "5G" was originally used in research papers and projects to denote the next major phase in mobile telecommunication standards beyond the 4G / IMT-Advanced standards. The 3GPP defines 5G as any system that adheres to

6943-599: The screen . Depending on the device's type and design, the screen fills most or nearly all of the space on a device's front surface. Many smartphone displays have an aspect ratio of 16:9 , but taller aspect ratios became more common in 2017. Screen sizes are often measured in diagonal inches or millimeters ; feature phones generally have screen sizes below 90 millimetres (3.5 in). Phones with screens larger than 130 millimetres (5.2 in) are often called " phablets ." Smartphones with screens over 115 millimetres (4.5 in) in size are commonly difficult to use with only

7074-651: The 5G MiFi M1100 in Qatar. It is the first commercially available 5G mobile hotspot in the region. On 28 January 2009, the group announced a partner network agreement with Du , the second-largest operator in the United Arab Emirates. The agreement involved co-operation on international clients, handset procurement, mobile broadband etc. Vodafone's network partner in Canada was Rogers Wireless . but has since changed to Telus On 11 May 2008, Vodafone sealed

7205-657: The 80% that it did not already own of Astec Communications, a service provider with 21 stores. In January 1997, Whent retired and Chris Gent took over as CEO. In the same year, Vodafone introduced its Speechmark logo, composed of a quotation mark in a circle, with the Os in the Vodafone logotype representing opening and closing quotation marks and suggesting conversation. On 29 June 1999, Vodafone completed its purchase of American service provider AirTouch and changed its name to Vodafone AirTouch Plc. The merged company commenced trading on 30 June 1999. The acquisition gave Vodafone

7336-417: The 84th Academy Awards. This makes it the first silent film to win an award since the original ceremony in 1929. Mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area, as opposed to a fixed-location phone ( landline phone ). The radio frequency link establishes

7467-595: The GSM was used by over 5 billion people in over 220 countries. The GSM (2G) has evolved into 3G, 4G and 5G. The standardization body for GSM started at the CEPT Working Group GSM (Group Special Mobile) in 1982 under the umbrella of CEPT. In 1988, ETSI was established, and all CEPT standardization activities were transferred to ETSI. Working Group GSM became Technical Committee GSM. In 1991, it became Technical Committee SMG (Special Mobile Group) when ETSI tasked

7598-493: The Google Play Store), RIM's BlackBerry App World , or Android-related app stores like Aptoide , Cafe Bazaar , F-Droid , GetJar , and Opera Mobile Store . In February 2014, 93% of mobile developers were targeting smartphones first for mobile app development. As of 2022, the top five manufacturers worldwide were Samsung (21%), Apple (16%), Xiaomi (13%), Oppo (10%), and Vivo (9%). From 1983 to 1998, Motorola

7729-635: The Mannesmann board agreed to an increased offer of £112 billion, then the largest corporate merger ever. The EU approved the merger in April 2000 after Vodafone agreed to divest the 'Orange' brand, which was acquired in May 2000 by France Télécom . On 28 July 2000, the Company reverted to its former name, Vodafone Group Plc. On 17 December 2001, Vodafone introduced the concept of "Partner Networks", by signing TDC Mobil of Denmark. The new concept involved

7860-609: The Orange brand was phased out on 19 August 2013, when its operations were merged into 3. In March 2012, France Télécom bought 93.9% of Mobinil , an Egyptian mobile operator, from Naguib Sawiris 's Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT) in an effort to double its revenue in MENA by 2015. On 28 May 2013 at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting, shareholders approved changing the name of the group to Orange S.A. This became effective on 1 July 2013. In September 2014, Orange agreed

7991-641: The Orange brand. Orange is present in the U.S. through its Orange Business division and its venture capital historical partner Innovacom as well as two R&D labs: one in Boston , Massachusetts and the other in South San Francisco, California . OpenTransit is Orange's backbone network. It covers Europe, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and loops back to Paris. Orange and Deutsche Telekom merged their UK businesses in 2010 to form

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8122-540: The Racal Strategic Radio Ltd subsidiary was established. Jan Stenbeck , head of a growing Swedish conglomerate, set up an American company, Millicom Inc , and approached Gerry Whent in July 1982 about bidding jointly for the UK's second cellular radio licence. The two struck a deal giving Racal 60% of the new company, Racal-Millicom Ltd, and Millicom 40%. Due to concerns of the Government of

8253-714: The SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device, provided that this is not prevented by a SIM lock . The first SIM card was made in 1991 by Munich smart card maker Giesecke & Devrient for the Finnish wireless network operator Radiolinja . A hybrid mobile phone can hold up to four SIM cards, with a phone having a different device identifier for each SIM Card. SIM and R-UIM cards may be mixed together to allow both GSM and CDMA networks to be accessed. From 2010 onwards, such phones became popular in emerging markets, and this

8384-670: The UK's largest manufacturer of military radios – negotiated a deal with Lord Weinstock of the UK General Electric Company (GEC), which gave Racal access to some of GEC's battlefield radio technology. Harrison directed the head of Racal's military radio division, Gerry Whent , to explore the use of that technology for civilian purposes. Whent visited a mobile radio factory run by the US company General Electric (unrelated to UK GEC) in Virginia , that same year. In 1981,

8515-421: The UK, the total number of mobile phones overtook the number of houses in 1999. Today, mobile phones are globally ubiquitous, and in almost half the world's countries, over 90% of the population owns at least one. A handheld mobile radio telephone service was envisioned in the early stages of radio engineering. In 1917, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt filed a patent for a "pocket-size folding telephone with

8646-692: The United Kingdom about foreign ownership, the terms were revised, and in December 1982 the Racal-Millicom partnership was awarded the second UK mobile phone network licence. Final ownership of Racal-Millicom Ltd was 80% Racal, with Millicom holding 15% plus royalties, and the venture firm Hambros Technology Trust holding 5%. According to the UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade , "the bid submitted by Racal-Millicom Ltd … provided

8777-541: The United States using NetGem set top boxes. The MyGlobeTV service was discontinued In December 2013. Viaccess Orca is a provider of IPTV and OTT TV service platforms and security services. It is headquartered in Paris La Defense. Viaccess-orca acquired Squadeo company in 2017 and is able to supply video secured player. Viaccess Orca is also involved in content tracking over internet, providing anti-piracy services. Orange Labs (formerly France Télécom R&D)

8908-724: The Vodafone offer. On 2 September 2013, Vodafone announced it would be selling its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications for $ US130 billion. With the proceeds from the deal, it announced a £19 billion Project Spring initiative to improve network quality in Europe and emerging markets, such as India . In June 2017, the company took measures to prevent its advertising from appearing within outlets focused on creating and sharing hate speech and fake news. In January 2020, Vodafone confirmed that it has pulled out of Diem Association (known as Libra Association at

9039-578: The ability to transfer cash payments by secure SMS text message. Kenya's M-PESA mobile banking service, for example, allows customers of the mobile phone operator Safaricom to hold cash balances which are recorded on their SIM cards. Cash can be deposited or withdrawn from M-PESA accounts at Safaricom retail outlets located throughout the country and can be transferred electronically from person to person and used to pay bills to companies. Branchless banking has also been successful in South Africa and

9170-550: The abnormally high traffic. Capacity was further increased when phone companies implemented digital networks. With digital, one frequency can host multiple simultaneous calls. Additionally, short-range Wi-Fi infrastructure is often used by smartphones as much as possible as it offloads traffic from cell networks on to local area networks. The common components found on all mobile phones are: Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones and offer basic telephony. Handsets with more advanced computing ability through

9301-961: The benefits of different calling plans. For example, a particular plan might provide for cheaper local calls, long-distance calls, international calls, or roaming. The mobile phone has been used in a variety of diverse contexts in society. For example: In 1998, one of the first examples of distributing and selling media content through the mobile phone was the sale of ringtones by Radiolinja in Finland. Soon afterwards, other media content appeared, such as news, video games, jokes, horoscopes, TV content and advertising. Most early content for mobile phones tended to be copies of legacy media , such as banner advertisements or TV news highlight video clips. Recently, unique content for mobile phones has been emerging, from ringtones and ringback tones to mobisodes , video content that has been produced exclusively for mobile phones. In many countries, mobile phones are used to provide mobile banking services, which may include

9432-642: The best prospect for early national coverage by cellular radio." Vodafone was launched on 1 January 1985 under the new name of Racal-Vodafone (Holdings) Ltd, with its first office based in the Courtyard in Newbury, Berkshire , and shortly thereafter Racal Strategic Radio was renamed Racal Telecommunications Group Limited. The first non-Vodafone employee to make a UK mobile phone call was comedian Ernie Wise , from St Katharine Docks , London on 1 January 1985. On 29 December 1986, Racal Electronics issued shares to

9563-408: The broadband internet sector. With 7.3 million Liveboxes rented out, Orange experienced a notable 12.3% increase in just one year. Beginning in 2003, Orange's strategy has centred on the acquisition, creation and diffusion of content. This starts with the creation of MaLigne.tv in 2003, later renamed Orange TV , an ADSL television access service and a video-on-demand service. In 2004, Orange organised

9694-469: The call, from detecting the presence of a handset in a service area, temporary assignment of a channel to a handset making a call, interface with the land-line side of the network to connect to other subscribers, and collection of billing information for the service. The automation systems can control the "hand off" of a customer handset moving between one cell and another so that a call in progress continues without interruption, changing channels if required. In

9825-399: The clock rate (generally given in multiples of hertz ) but also the memory hierarchy also greatly affects overall performance. Because of these problems, the performance of mobile phone CPUs is often more appropriately given by scores derived from various standardized tests to measure the real effective performance in commonly used applications. One of the main characteristics of phones is

9956-407: The committee with UMTS (3G). In addition to transmitting voice over digital signals, the 2G network introduced data services for mobile, starting with SMS text messages, then expanding to Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and mobile internet with a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 384 kbit/s (48 kB/s). In 2001, the third-generation ( 3G ) was launched in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on

10087-785: The commuting patterns of Beijing city residents. In the UK and US, law enforcement and intelligence services use mobile phones to perform surveillance operations. Vodafone Vodafone Group Plc ( / ˈ v oʊ d ə f oʊ n / ) is a British multinational telecommunications company . Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire , England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. As of October 2024 , Vodafone owns and operates networks in 16 countries, with partner networks in 46 further countries. Its Vodafone Global Enterprise division provides telecommunications and IT services to corporate clients in 150 countries. Vodafone has

10218-639: The company announced a deal with Telecom Egypt , resulting in further co-operation in the Egyptian market and increasing its stake in Vodafone Egypt. After the deal, Vodafone Egypt was 55% owned by the group, while the remaining 45% was owned by Telecom Egypt. On 29 January 2020, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and the Vodafone Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the sale of Vodafone's entire 55 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt to STC. With

10349-466: The company has had a separate body corporate from the State and acquired financial autonomy. It was privatised by Lionel Jospin 's Plural Left government starting on 1 January 1998. The French government , both directly and through its holding company ERAP , continues to hold a stake of almost 27% in the company. In addition, The French government's role in naming the CEO. In September 1995, Michel Bon

10480-509: The company. His departure was shadowed by controversy over his stock options: he was suspected of having stayed with the company longer to wait for the France Telecom share to recover and then exercise his stock option. The share was trading at around €16, whereas his stock options were at €23. On 3 February 2012, Hutchison Whampoa announced that it would buy Orange Austria for US$ 1.7 billion. The deal closed on 3 January 2013, and

10611-435: The concept of frequency reuse allowing many simultaneous telephone conversations in a given service area. This allows efficient use of the limited radio spectrum allocated to mobile services, and lets thousands of subscribers converse at the same time within a given geographic area. Former systems would cover a service area with one or two powerful base stations with a range of up to tens of kilometers' (miles), using only

10742-495: The department of P&T (Posts and Telegraphs) became PTT. In 1941, a General Direction of Telecommunications was created within this ministry. Then, in 1944, the National Centre of Telecommunications Studies (CNET) was created to develop the telecommunications industry in France. In the 1970s, France attempted to make up for its delay in developing communications infrastructure, compared to other countries, by launching

10873-522: The dot-com bubble. Moreover, its alliance with Deutsche Telekom based on a reciprocal capital contribution of 2% broke off when Deutsche Telekom announced that they were planning to do business with Telecom Italia without letting the French know; even if this project ended up failing. In July 1991, Hutchison Telecom , a UK subsidiary of the Hong Kong -based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa , acquired

11004-415: The earliest mobile phone systems by contrast, all control was done manually; the customer would search for an unoccupied channel and speak to a mobile operator to request connection of a call to a landline number or another mobile. At the termination of the call the mobile operator would manually record the billing information. Mobile phones communicate with cell towers that are placed to give coverage across

11135-496: The end of 2009. In 2014, there were more than seven billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, a number that is expected to keep growing. Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes, such as keeping in touch with family members, for conducting business, and in order to have access to a telephone in the event of an emergency. Some people carry more than one mobile phone for different purposes, such as for business and personal use. Multiple SIM cards may be used to take advantage of

11266-531: The ergonomics associated with smaller 16:9 displays. Liquid-crystal displays are the most common; others are IPS , LED , OLED , and AMOLED displays. Some displays are integrated with pressure-sensitive digitizers, such as those developed by Wacom and Samsung , and Apple's " 3D Touch " system. In sound, smartphones and feature phones vary little. Some audio-quality enhancing features, such as Voice over LTE and HD Voice , have appeared and are often available on newer smartphones. Sound quality can remain

11397-420: The expected usage density, and may be much smaller in cities. In that case much lower transmitter powers are used to avoid broadcasting beyond the cell. In order to handle the high traffic, multiple towers can be set up in the same area (using different frequencies). This can be done permanently or temporarily such as at special events or in disasters. Cell phone companies will bring a truck with equipment to host

11528-486: The first quarter of 2016, the top smartphone developers worldwide were Samsung , Apple and Huawei ; smartphone sales represented 78 percent of total mobile phone sales. For feature phones as of 2016 , the top-selling brands were Samsung, Nokia and Alcatel . Mobile phones are considered an important human invention as they have been one of the most widely used and sold pieces of consumer technology. The growth in popularity has been rapid in some places, for example, in

11659-517: The fourth-biggest global operator. The mobile telephone operations of Orange plc were merged with the majority of the mobile operations of France Télécom, forming the new group Orange S.A. On 13 February 2001, Orange S.A. was listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange with an initial public offering of €95 per share, with a secondary listing in London. In May 2001, Orange S.A. was listed on

11790-487: The government. On 3 July 2008, Vodafone agreed to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom for $ 900 million. The acquisition was consummated on 17 August 2008. The same group-led consortium won the second fixed-line licence in Qatar on 15 September 2008. On 15 April 2009, Ghana Telecom, along with its mobile subsidiary OneTouch, was rebranded as Vodafone Ghana . In February 2023, Vodafone Group has concluded

11921-587: The group, and demerge the other 35 per cent to its shareholder. Meanwhile, Vodafone has agreed to make Vodacom its exclusive sub-Saharan Africa investment vehicle, as well as continuing to maintain the visibility of the Vodacom brand. The transaction closed in May/June 2009. On 18 May 2009, Vodacom entered the JSE Limited stock exchange in South Africa after Vodafone increased its stake by 15% to 65% to take

12052-599: The growth of bandwidth-intensive applications, such as streaming media . Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized fourth-generation ( 4G ) technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to tenfold over existing 3G technologies. The first publicly available LTE service was launched in Scandinavia by TeliaSonera in 2009. In the 2010s, 4G technology has found diverse applications across various sectors, showcasing its versatility in delivering high-speed wireless communication, such as mobile broadband,

12183-599: The home network through several communication interfaces ( Bluetooth , Ethernet , Wi-Fi ). The Livebox has evolved over time. The Livebox 1.0 was replaced by version 1.1, the Mini Livebox, followed by the Livebox 2.0. The newest version was scheduled to be rolled out in 2012. The Livebox is offered on a monthly contract for €3 per month or for purchase for €59. The Number of Liveboxes rented in 2008,this statistic reflects Orange's significant market penetration and growth in

12314-569: The influence of European companies had significantly decreased due to fierce competition from American and Asian companies, to where most technical innovation had shifted. Apple and Google, both of the United States, also came to dominate mobile phone software. The world's largest individual mobile operator by number of subscribers is China Mobile , which has over 902 million mobile phone subscribers as of June 2018 . Over 50 mobile operators have over ten million subscribers each, and over 150 mobile operators had at least one million subscribers by

12445-430: The introduction of Vodafone international services to the local market, without the need of investment by Vodafone. The concept would be used to extend the Vodafone brand and services into markets where it did not have stakes in local operators. Vodafone services would be marketed under the dual-brand scheme, where the Vodafone brand is added at the end of the local brand. (i.e., TDC Mobil-Vodafone etc.) Vodafone sponsored

12576-466: The largest mobile operator with 37% of the market. Both T-Mobile and Orange brands were kept due to differences in their targeted markets. T-Mobile remained the budget-conscious offering and Orange the premium one, although there was some overlap as of February 2011. On 5 April 2009, Orange won an Arbitration Court case against Orascom Telecom, forcing Orascom to transfer its stake in Mobinil to Orange at

12707-403: The launch of the Orange cinema series television channels and aimed to offer customers access to all content available through Orange's services, anywhere and from any device. Orange Cinema Series is launched 13 November 2008, along with Orange Sport; it comprises five channels devoted to movies (Orange Ciné Max, Ciné Happy, Ciné Choc, Ciné Novo, Ciné Géant). The channels primarily show films from

12838-414: The local cell and in the adjacent cells. However, cells further away can re-use that channel without interference as the subscriber's handset is too far away to be detected. The transmitter power of each base station is coordinated to efficiently service its own cell, but not to interfere with the cells further away. Automation embedded in the customer's handset and in the base stations control all phases of

12969-428: The media and broadcast industry, such as TV channel distribution via satellite and Internet, live event production, contribution and distribution services, channel content preparation and playout. GlobeCast World TV was a brand by Globecast for its north-american direct-to-home satellite broadcast of international channels. In 2012, Globecast also began launching a direct-to-consumer OTT IPTV service called MyGlobeTV in

13100-562: The merger was approved, asserting the merger would strengthen competition. In November 2024, the Competition and Markets Authority provisionally concluded that the Vodafone and Three Merger could go ahead – if both companies make price promises for consumers and commit to boosting the UK's 5G rollout. In June 2024, Vodafone Group sold an 18% stake in Indus Towers , raising $ 1.82 billion to reduce its debt. Initially planning to sell

13231-521: The mid-2030s, including a spectrum shift to aid Vodafone's $ 19 billion merger with Three UK, which faced a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation. The deal, involved selling some of its combined 59% of the best 5G spectrum to Virgin Media O2, aimed to address regulatory concerns about reducing mobile networks from four to three in Britain. Vodafone pledged a £11 billion investment in 5G if

13362-612: The minority shareholders of Vodafone worth £110 million, and Vodafone became a fully owned brand of Racal. On 26 October 1988, Racal Telecom, majority held by Racal Electronics, went public on the London Stock Exchange with 20% of its stock floated. The successful flotation led to a situation where Racal's stake in Racal Telecom Plc was valued more than the whole of Racal Electronics. Under stock market pressure to realise full value for shareholders, Racal demerged Racal Telecom in 1991. On 16 September 1991, Racal Telecom

13493-558: The organisation, including more than 200 doctoral candidates and post-doctorates. Orange's research and development is based on partnerships with industry, suppliers and operators, universities and schools, academic institutes and research programs such as the following: Two types of infrastructure coexist in Orange's research and development: the research laboratories and the technocentres. The latter are responsible for Orange innovations and consist of multidisciplinary teams of researchers, engineers, and marketing and sales personnel. Cityvox

13624-530: The parent of Warner Music Group . On 25 January 2011 Orange announced the acquisition of 49% of Dailymotion , a French online video platform, at a cost of €58.8 million. The group also secured an option to acquire all of the shares in the platform in 2013. This is indicative of a new strategy by Orange, which seeks to offer a full range of multi-screen video to its subscribers. In 2015 Vivendi acquired 90% of Dailymotion. Created in 2007 Studio 37  [ fr ] co-produces and acquires films, unlike

13755-399: The phone and the point of sale support near field communication (NFC). Enabling contactless payments through NFC-equipped mobile phones requires the co-operation of manufacturers, network operators, and retail merchants. Mobile phones are commonly used to collect location data. While the phone is turned on, the geographical location of a mobile phone can be determined easily (whether it

13886-567: The phone close to the ear. The average phone battery lasts two–three years at best. Many of the wireless devices use a Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery, which charges 500–2500 times, depending on how users take care of the battery and the charging techniques used. It is only natural for these rechargeable batteries to chemically age, which is why the performance of the battery when used for a year or two will begin to deteriorate. Battery life can be extended by draining it regularly, not overcharging it, and keeping it away from heat. Mobile phones require

14017-485: The programme "Delta LP" (increasing the main lines). It was at that time that the majority of the local loop was built (that is all the cables linking the users to the operator). Moreover, with the help of French manufacturers, digital switching -- Minitel and the GSM standard—were invented by engineers and CNET researchers. In 1982, Telecom introduced Minitel online ordering for its customers. Until 1988, France Télécom

14148-642: The rights to home matches of eight Serie A clubs ( Sampdoria , Atalanta , Chievo , Reggina , Siena , Palermo , Udinese and Napoli ). The acquisition of these rights marks the start of competition for sports programs with the Canal+ group. Orange offers services for video on demand access using the Orange decoder, a computer or a mobile phone. Orange offers free programming from the catalogues of available works of France Television, M6 and TF1 for one week after their initial broadcast. In 1997, France Telecom created Goa, an online entertainment subsidiary. The site

14279-699: The sale of its 70% stake in Vodafone Ghana to Telecel Group in a bid to streamline its African portfolio, thus exiting the Ghanaian market. On 24 February 2010, the group signed a partner network agreement with the second-largest operator in Libya, al Madar. On 3 November 2004, the company announced that its South African affiliate Vodacom had agreed to introduce Vodafone's international services, such as Vodafone live! and partner agreements, to its local market. In November 2005, Vodafone announced that it

14410-408: The sale, Vodafone would be exiting the Egyptian market as a telecom operator. Telecom Egypt said that it has no plans to sell its 45% stake. On 21 December 2020, Vodafone announced that had failed to reach an agreement in its discussions with STC regarding the sale of Vodafone's 55% shareholding in Vodafone Egypt. Vodafone sold its shares in Vodafone Egypt to Vodacom in 2022 in which Vodafone has

14541-504: The second-generation ( 2G ) digital cellular technology was launched in Finland by Radiolinja on the GSM standard. This sparked competition in the sector as the new operators challenged the incumbent 1G network operators. The GSM standard is a European initiative expressed at the CEPT ("Conférence Européenne des Postes et Telecommunications", European Postal and Telecommunications conference). The Franco-German R&D cooperation demonstrated

14672-459: The sole brand of the France Telecom group for Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries in which Orange operated. Orange Business Services became the brand for all its business services offerings worldwide, replacing the Equant brand. In June 2007, Orange and Mid Europa Partners acquired Austrian mobile network company One, re-branding it as Orange Austria . In 2012, it

14803-451: The task of turning the company around after the company became crippled by debt following the drop of the company's stock price. On 30 September 2002, the company's stock price was €6.94, down from €219 on 2 March 2000. France Télécom was the second most indebted company worldwide in terms of short-term liabilities. The company obtained €15 billion of debt adjustment that needed to be borne by banks and investors, another €15 billion as

14934-401: The technical feasibility, and in 1987, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between 13 European countries that agreed to launch a commercial service by 1991. The first version of the GSM standard had 6,000 pages. The IEEE and RSE awarded Thomas Haug and Philippe Dupuis the 2018 James Clerk Maxwell medal for their contributions to the first digital mobile telephone standard. In 2018,

15065-607: The third operator in the Sultanate of Oman. In December 2007, a Vodafone Group-led consortium was awarded the second mobile phone licence in Qatar under the name "Vodafone Qatar". Vodafone Qatar is located at QSTP, the Qatar Science & Technology Park . Commercial operations officially began on 1 March 2009. In February 2018 Vodafone Europe agreed to sell their stake in the Qatar joint venture. On 25 November 2019, Vodafone in collaboration with Inseego Corp. introduced

15196-504: The time), the governing council for the Facebook -created global digital currency initiative. In June 2023, it was announced that Vodafone UK would merge with Three UK ; Vodafone would own 51% of the combined company, and CK Hutchison Holdings 49%. If approved by regulators, the merger will create a group with 27 million mobile customers. On 3 July 2024, Vodafone and Virgin Media O2 announced to extend their network-sharing deal into

15327-699: The use of native software applications are known as smartphones . The first GSM phones and many feature phones had NOR flash memory, from which processor instructions could be executed directly in an execute in place architecture and allowed for short boot times. With smartphones, NAND flash memory was adopted as it has larger storage capacities and lower costs, but causes longer boot times because instructions cannot be executed from it directly, and must be copied to RAM memory first before execution. Mobile phones have central processing units (CPUs), similar to those in computers, but optimised to operate in low power environments. Mobile CPU performance depends not only on

15458-466: The years expanded its activities to include content sales (music, cinema, downloads, etc.), e-commerce, online advertising, M2M, home automation and remote assistance solutions. In 2023, it generated over €43 billion in revenue across all its businesses. In 1792, under the French Revolution , the first communication network was developed to enable the rapid transmission of information in

15589-515: Was also reorganised internally, most notably with the arrival of former Culture Minister Christine Albanel as head of communications for the group. In mid-April 2010, Orange UK announced that it would outsource the management of its broadband network to BT. This announcement was greeted positively by broadband commentators, who felt that the move was likely to improve Orange's broadband quality and customer services. On 2 March 2012, Didier Lombard , who remained special advisor to Stéphane Richard , left

15720-424: Was appointed to run France Télécom Group. In 1997, the capital of the new public company was successfully floated whereas the dot-com bubble phenomenon made the stock exchanges bullish. A second share offering occurred in 1998. France Télécom got behind in the internationalisation launched by its international competitors such as Vodafone , thus, it started looking for targets at the highest speculation rate of

15851-412: Was attributed to the desire to obtain the lowest calling costs. When the removal of a SIM card is detected by the operating system, it may deny further operation until a reboot. Feature phones have basic software platforms. Smartphones have advanced software platforms. Android OS has been the best-selling OS worldwide on smartphones since 2011. A mobile app is a computer program designed to run on

15982-416: Was demerged from Racal Electronics as Vodafone Group Plc, with Gerry Whent as its CEO. In July 1996, Vodafone acquired the two-thirds of Talkland it did not already own for £30.6 million. On 19 November 1996, in a defensive move, Vodafone purchased for £77 million Peoples Phone , a 181-store chain whose customers were overwhelmingly using Vodafone's network. In a similar move the company acquired

16113-587: Was demonstrated by Martin Cooper of Motorola in New York City on 3 April 1973, using a handset weighing c. 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs). In 1979, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) launched the world's first cellular network in Japan. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. From 1983 to 2014, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew to over seven billion; enough to provide one for every person on Earth. In

16244-555: Was followed in 1981 by the simultaneous launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Several other countries then followed in the early to mid-1980s. These first-generation ( 1G ) systems could support far more simultaneous calls but still used analog cellular technology. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. In 1991,

16375-579: Was in exclusive talks to buy a 15% stake of VenFin in Vodacom Group, reaching agreement the following day. Vodafone and Telkom then had a 50% stake each in Vodacom. Vodafone now owns 57.5% of Vodacom after purchasing a 15% stake from Telkom. On 9 October 2008, the company offered to acquire an additional 15% stake in Vodacom Group from Telkom. The finalised details of the agreement were announced on 6 November 2008. The agreement called for Telkom to sell 15 per cent of its 50 per cent stake in Vodacom to

16506-462: Was known as the direction générale des Télécommunications , a division of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications . It became autonomous in 1990. This was in response to a European directive, aimed at making competition mandatory in public services from 1 January 1998. The 2 July 1990 Bill changed France Télécom into an operator of public law, with Marcel Roulet as the first Chairman. Since then,

16637-456: Was launched in Finland in 2000, and subsequently many organizations provided "on-demand" and "instant" news services by SMS. Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) was introduced in March 2002. The introduction of Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch in July 2008 popularized manufacturer-hosted online distribution for third-party applications (software and computer programs) focused on

16768-532: Was licensed to a number of operators which Orange S.A. did not own, these include: Orange took over the landline and Internet businesses of France Telecom and Wanadoo in 2006. Since then, Orange is the sole brand of France Telecom for landline and Internet services worldwide, with a few exceptions, such as Mobistar in Belgium and TPSA in Poland. Orange's triple-play broadband Internet offers are supplied through

16899-455: Was market leader in mobile phones. Nokia was the market leader in mobile phones from 1998 to 2012. In Q1 2012, Samsung surpassed Nokia, selling 93.5 million units as against Nokia's 82.7 million units. Samsung has retained its top position since then. Aside from Motorola, European brands such as Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson once held large sway over the global mobile phone market, and many new technologies were pioneered in Europe. By 2010,

17030-475: Was rejected. Vodafone's interest in Mannesmann had been increased by the latter's purchase of Orange , the UK mobile operator. Gent would later say Mannesmann's move into the UK broke a "gentleman's agreement" not to compete in each other's home territory. The hostile takeover provoked strong protests in Germany, and a "titanic struggle" which saw Mannesmann resist Vodafone's efforts. However, on 3 February 2000,

17161-575: Was sold to Hutchison 3G and the Orange Austria brand was terminated. In November 2008, Orange launched five Orange Cinema Series channels. To do so, Orange bought the exclusive rights from Warner Bros. for first runs of all new films, previously held by TPS Star (a subsidiary of the Canal+ Group ), as well as all films in its catalogue and rights to the film catalogues of Gaumont , HBO and MGM . Orange also secured exclusive rights to broadcast Saturday evening Ligue 1 football matches from

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