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T-Mobile (brand)

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T-Mobile
Company typeSubsidiary of Deutsche Telekom
IndustryCommunications
Founded1990
HeadquartersBonn, Germany
Key people
Alec Smalle – Chief Executive Officer
ProductsFixed and Mobile telephony, DSL, Wireless PDAs, Mobile Broadband
Number of employees
36,000
ParentDeutsche Telekom
Everything Everywhere (UK)
Websitet-mobile.net
Stakes of T-Mobile International without T-Mobile USA:
  100% Share
  >50% Share
T-Mobile corporate headquarters, Bonn

T-Mobile is a German provider, owned by Deutsche Telekom. It operates several GSM networks in Europe and the United States. T-Mobile also has financial stakes in mobile operators in Central and Eastern Europe. Globally, T-Mobile has some 150 million subscribers,[1] making it the world's seventh largest mobile phone service provider by subscribers and the third largest multinational after the United Kingdom's Vodafone and Spain's Telefónica. T-Mobile UK has recently become part of a joint venture with France Telecom's mobile network provider, Orange U.K.; together they make the UK's largest mobile operator, called Everything Everywhere.

Based in Germany, T-Mobile is present in ten other European countries (Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom) as well as the United States.

In late 2005, Deutsche Telekom attempted to acquire rival mobile network operator O2, but was beaten by Spain's Telefónica.[2]

In March 2008, the company announced its plan to acquire Siemens Wireless Modules (now known as Cinterion Wireless Modules) as part of the JOMA consortium. The Siemens Wireless Modules spin off to Cinterion Wireless Modules was concluded on 1 May 2008.

History

File:TD1logo.jpg
The T-D1 logo and brand used in Germany beginning in the mid-1990s for Telekom's GSM network, known in Germany as the D-Netz.
File:C-Net Logo.png
Initial 1984 logo of the analog C-Netz, the first-generation analog mobile phone system that was the predecessor of DeTeMobil and T-Mobile

In Germany, its home market, T-Mobile is the largest mobile phone operator with almost 36 million subscribers (As of January 2008), closely followed by its primary rival, Vodafone. The highly profitable GSM network in Germany is scheduled to be supplemented and ultimately replaced by UMTS, for which T-Mobile spent EUR 8.2 billion in August 2000 to acquire one of the six licenses for Germany.

On July 1, 1989, West Germany's state-owned postal monopoly, Deutsche Bundespost (DBP) was reorganized, with telecommunications consolidated in a new Deutsche Bundespost Telekom unit; this was renamed Deutsche Telekom in 1995, and began to be privatized in 1996.

The analog first-generation C-Netz ("C Network", marketed as C-Tel) was Germany's first true mobile phone network (the A and B networks, also owned by the post office, had been previous radiotelephone systems), and was introduced in 1985. Following German reunification in 1990, it was extended to the former East Germany.

On July 1, 1992, the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom began to operate Germany's first GSM network, along with the C-Netz, as its DeTeMobil subsidiary. The GSM 900 MHz frequency band was referred to as the "D-Netz", and Telekom named its service D1; the private consortium awarded the second license (formerly Mannesmann, now Vodafone) chose the equally imaginative name D2. In 1996, as Deutsche Telekom began to brand its subsidiaries with the T- prefix, the network was renamed T-D1 and DeTeMobil became T-Mobil; the C-Netz, in the process of being wound down, was not rebranded, and was shut down in 2000. In 2002, as Deutsche Telekom consolidated its international operations, it anglicized the T-Mobil name as T-Mobile, although sometimes also using the name T-D1 within Germany. It is still common for Germans to refer to T-Mobile and Vodafone as D1 and D2.

D1 introduced short message service (SMS) services in 1994 and began a prepaid service, Xtra, in 1997.[3]

On April 1, 2010, after the T-Home and T-Mobile German operations merged to form Telekom Deutschland GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, the T-Mobile brand was discontinued in Germany and replaced with the Telekom brand.

The T-Mobile ring tone was composed by Lance Massey.[4]

Global operations

Austria

Until 2000 T-Mobile was a shareholder of the former max.mobil. network. In April 2001 it acquired 100 percent and subsequently introduced the T-Mobile brand in Austria by rebranding max.mobil. in April 2002 as T-Mobile Austria.

In 2005, it acquired former competitor tele.ring from Western Wireless International. It is now used as a discount brand.

Croatia

T-Mobile entered the Croatian market in October 1999 when Deutsche Telekom (DT) initially acquired a 35 percent interest in Hrvatski telekom, including its cell phone service provider Cronet. Two years later, DT signed an agreement with the Croatian government to acquire the additional 16 percent needed for a majority holding. In January 2003, Hrvatski Telekom assembled all of its mobile activities under a single brand HTmobile. Finally, in October 2004, HTmobile became T-Mobile Hrvatska, or T-Mobile Croatia, thus joining the global T-Mobile family also by name.[citation needed]

Czech Republic

T-Mobile was previously known as Paegas in the Czech Republic.

T-Mobile Czech Republic a.s. has been operating in the Czech market since 1996. As of May 30, 2008, 5.273 million customers were using T-Mobile services.

T-Mobile Czech Republic a.s. operates a public mobile communications network on the GSM standard in the 900 and 1800 MHz bands and is also authorized to operate a UMTS network. T-Mobile was the first operator in the Czech Republic to launch this third-generation technology on October 19, 2005 under the name Internet 4G.[citation needed]

Hungary

In May 2004, the same day as Hungary joined the European Union, the former company, named Westel (which was owned entirely by the former Matáv) changed its name, and the entire marketing. Westel was the most popular cellphone network in Hungary at the time. The company was called T-Mobile Hungary, but after some financial decisions, as with the other T- companies, it formed to Magyar Telekom Nyrt. Mobil Szolgáltatások Üzletág (Hungarian Telekom, Mobile Services Business Unit), but they still say T-Mobile. T-Mobile also provides high-speed services, like EDGE, 3G, and HSDPA in the major cities of Hungary.[citation needed]

Macedonia

Main article: T-Mobile Macedonia

In Macedonia, T-Mobile was previously known as Mobimak. The company has been operating in the Macedonian market since 1996. On September 7, 2006, Mobimak accepted the international T-Mobile branding. By June 2007, T-Mobile reached 1 million subscribers, out of which 85% were active and using their services. T-Mobile MK covers 98.5% of the population. It has a GSM 900 license, offers GPRS, MMS and mobile internet services using T-Mobile HotSpots and has implemented the EDGE fast mobile internet specification. T-Mobile Macedonia applied for a UMTS license on August 1, 2007. The current codes are 070/071/072.[citation needed]

Montenegro

T-Mobile brand entered the Montenegrin market in 2006 through the acquisition of MoNet GSM mobile provider. T-Mobile Montenegro (T-Mobile Crna Gora) is fully owned by T-Crnogorski Telekom, which is itself owned by Magyar Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. Although the acquisition by Magyar Telekom was done in 2005, it was not until September 26, 2006 that the MoNet GSM operator was re-branded as T-Mobile Montenegro.[citation needed]

MoNet GSM launched on July 1, 2000, as part of Telecom Montenegro. It became an independent incorporated limited liability company a month later, on August 1, 2000. The company currently holds around 34 percent of the Montenegrin market and uses GSM 900, GPRS, and EDGE technologies. Since June 21, 2007 3G/UMTS services have been available in larger cities as well as on the coast.[citation needed]

Netherlands

T-Mobile entered the Dutch market by the acquisition of Ben on September 20, 2002. T-Mobile Netherlands, a wholly-owned subsidiary of T-Mobile International, acquired Orange Netherlands from France Télécom for EUR 1.33 billion. This makes it the second largest mobile telephone operator in the country behind KPN.[5]

Poland

T-Mobile owns 93%[6] of Era, which serves over 13 million customers,[citation needed] and owns licenses for GSM 900, 1800, and UMTS, including wireless Internet access through HSDPA technology based on Blueconnect.

Slovakia

T-Mobile brand entered the Slovak market in May 2005, after rebranding EuroTel network and renaming Eurotel Bratislava to T-Mobile Slovensko. The company Eurotel Bratislava was partially owned by Slovak Telekom, an incumbent fixed line operator, which later acquired 100% stake in Eurotel Bratislava. T-Mobile Int. and Deutsche Telekom never owned T-Mobile Slovensko directly however DT is partially owner of Slovak Telekom and thus T-Mobile Int. has procurement managing function within T-Mobile Slovensko. Since July 1, 2010 Slovak Telekom and T-Mobile Slovensko merged into one company on the Slovak market under the name Slovak Telekom, however T-Mobile brand remains active in the mobile business area and T-Com in the fixed business area.

T-Mobile network provides services on three networks GSM (900 MHz), UMTS (2100 MHz), Flash OFDM (450 MHz). Mobile data services are provided on GSM network with EDGE extension and on UMTS with HSPA 7,2 bit/s/1,54 bit/s. Flash OFDM is one two commercially successfully launched solely data networks in the world. It supports download speed up to 5.3 MBit/s.

United Kingdom

Main article: T-Mobile (UK)
T-Mobile at Hatfield Business Park.
T-Mobile and Orange shops in Leeds.

T-Mobile UK started life as Mercury One2One, a GSM mobile network operated by the now-defunct Mercury Communications.[7] Later known simply as One 2 One, it was the world's first GSM 1800 network[8] when it was launched in September 1993. In its final days it was operated as a joint venture between Cable and Wireless and American cable provider Mediaone Group, which had a number of investments in Britain dating back to its days as the US West Media Group. One 2 One was purchased by Deutsche Telekom in 1999[9] and rebranded as T-Mobile in 2002.[10]

T-Mobile offers both pay-as-you-go and pay-monthly contract phones. The pay-monthly contracts consists of set amounts of minutes and 'flexible boosters' which allow the customer to change them month to month depending on their needs. Prior to this T-Mobile had a contract option known as 'Flext' which gave the user an amount of money to use for calls, texts, MMS and mobile internet as necessary. This was withdrawn in early 2010.[11] T-Mobile launched their 3G UMTS services in the Autumn of 2003.

On December 12, 2007, it was confirmed that a merger of the high-speed 3G and HSDPA networks operated by T-Mobile UK and 3 (UK) was to take place starting January 2008. This will leave T-Mobile and 3 with the largest HSDPA mobile phone network in the country, with a theoretical maximum speed of 6.5 Mb/s, rising to 7.2 Mb/s over the course of the year, although HSDPA access is restricted to Web'n'Walk Plus customers and above.

On September 8, 2009 France Telecom'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.[12] The long-term future of either brand is unclear such deal is completed although both brands will be maintained for the first eighteen months at least.[13]

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.[14] 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.[15] On March 1, 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.[16] On 1 April 2010 Deutsche Telekom and France Telekom finalised the deal and completed the merger of their UK based operations, causing Orange UK and T-Mobile UK to cease to exist, although the brands will be maintained for at least 18 months.[17]

On 11 May 2010 the new parent company of the merged Orange UK and T-Mobile UK brands was announced as "Everything Everywhere". Orange and T-Mobile will continue as leading brands in the market, with each brand having its own shops, marketing campaigns, propositions and service centres. However, behind the scenes, the two brands will be run by one company, with one team and one vision "to give consumers instant access to the people, places and things they want, wherever they are".[18]

T-Mobile's UK is also used as the backbone network behind Virgin Mobile (the world's first virtual network), for both 2G and 3G signals. Although on a Virgin handset/simcard it will report as saying Virgin and will not find T-Mobile UK on a manual network scan.

In November 2009, T-Mobile UK was the subject of an investigation by the British Information Commissioner's Office following the involvement of some T-Mobile employees in the illegal trade of personal data of millions of customers, in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.[19][20]

Network Outage

On November 17, 2009, as reported by Mobiholics.com,[21] there was a major network outage in East of England, covering as far as Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire & Essex. This was caused by a cut on their fibre cables and had to be repaired by the engineers. This resulted in about 12 hours of network outage.

Personal Data Sold on in Security Breach

On November 17, 2009, T-Mobile admitted that it faced a consumer backlash after it was revealed that due to its own lax data security controls an employee had been selling customer data to third party companies. The mobile operator admitted that one of their own employees is facing prosecution after selling personal details of thousands of British customers to rival companies in a major breach of UK data protection laws. UK Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said the data was sold for “substantial amounts of money” to brokers working for other mobile phone companies. The privacy watchdog said it planned to prosecute and would push for jail terms for anyone convicted. Rival companies bought the information and used it to make cold calls to the customers offering them a new contract with a new network.[19] In January 2011, T-Mobile celebrates its 21st anniversary until December 2011.

United States

Main article: T-Mobile USA

T-Mobile USA is the United States based subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG (T-Mobile USA is not part of T-Mobile International AG as are other T-Mobile properties). T-Mobile USA is currently the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the United States and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. T-Mobile USA's market has approximately 34 million customers as of June 2009 and annual revenue of US$17 billion.[22]

The U.S. T-Mobile network predominately uses the GSM/GPRS/EDGE 1900 MHz frequency-band, making it the second-largest 1900 MHz network in the United States[citation needed], only behind Sprint PCS, which uses CDMA technology. Service is available in 98 of the 100 largest markets and 268 million potential customers (POPS). In September 2008 T-Mobile began rolling out its 3G network (operating on the 1700 MHz band) to service G1 customers in 14 initial cities. T-Mobile's UMTS (3G) service is now active in over 30 major US cities and operates on over 15 new devices.

T-Mobile USA uses the 1700/2100 MHz AWS Band for its 3G network. The carrier states it allows faster download and upload data speeds utilizing HSPA+ technology, which allows for simultaneous voice and data. Upgrades to HSPA+ are planned for 2009 through 2010 which may boost average download speeds from 7.2Mbps to 21Mbps.[23]

T-Mobile Pre-paid service is available within the US. An issue is that web access passwords can only be reset by SMS, yet the prepaid phone does not work outside of the USA. T-mobile customer service management advises this is by FCC regulation. This is unusual, since German T-Mobile pre-paid will work anywhere in the world and web accounts can be managed by email.

The U.S. company was previously known as VoiceStream Wireless or Powertel. In July 2001, the company was acquired by Deutsche Telekom for US$50.7 billion,[24] and in September 2002 changed the company name nationally to T-Mobile.

On September 17, 2007, T-Mobile USA announced the acquisition of SunCom Wireless for US$2.4 billion. The acquisition expanded the network coverage to North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. At the end of the second quarter of 2007, SunCom had more than 1.1 million customers. The deal closed on February 22, 2008.

In August 2009, T-Mobile notified customers utilizing paper billing that effective September 2009 they would be charged $2 extra for paper billing and an extra $4 for detailed billing on paper. This has been an effort of the company to switch customers over to paperless billing. Less than two weeks later, T-Mobile announced openly that after careful consideration, they would not charge for customers to remain on paper billing.

Major outages

On November 3, 2009, T-Mobile USA subscribers lost the ability to send and receive calls and text messages.[25] T-Mobile confirmed the outage on their Twitter account, and later stated that 5% of its user base had been affected. T-Mobile blames a software error for the service interruption, stating that, "After investigating the cause, we have determined that a backend system software error had generated abnormal congestion on the network. T-Mobile has since implemented additional measures to help prevent this from happening in the future. We again apologize to those customers who were affected and may have been inconvenienced."[26] The service interruption comes on the heels of an embarrassing loss of data for the carrier's Sidekick users (See Microsoft data loss 2009).

Internet hotspots (802.11 WiFi)

In addition to mobile phone service, T-Mobile also operates WiFi hotspots in the United States and Europe. In the USA alone, it operates over 9,000 (as of December 22, 2006) T-Mobile HotSpot locations for Internet access, including such locations as airports, airline clubs, Starbucks coffeehouses (see below), Kinko's, Borders Books and Music, Hyatt, and Red Roof Inn Hotels. The U.S. WiFi infrastructure was completely replaced when T-Mobile bought the Wireless ISP MobileStar. In addition, Sony Computer Entertainment on behalf of T-Mobile introduced a HotSpot Locator and HotSpot Promotional Period (6 months from activation) for the Sony PSP system and Sony Mylo system. Both promotions are separate, and, by combining the total time allotted for each system, users can have up to one year free access, by using six months on the Mylo, and six months on the PlayStation Portable.

As with many wireless providers, handset subscribers can get discounts on WiFi access. These promotions are often extended to federal customers, frequent flyer programs and other various groups.

Beginning the second quarter of 2008, T-Mobile will no longer be the provider of Wi-Fi access for Starbucks coffeehouses, which ended its 2001 deal, switching to AT&T.[27] However, through a roaming agreement with AT&T, T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers will still be able to use the AT&T Starbucks wireless networks for a limited time. As of November, many T-Mobile subscribers who signed up under the impression they had access at any Starbucks are left in the dark.[28]

Statistics of Deutsche Telekom's GSM networks

[clarification needed]

  • All T-Mobile networks (including affiliates and minority owned): 148.4 million (as of March 2009)[29]

Mobile operators in which T-Mobile has a substantial stake

Albania — AMC1
Bulgaria — GLOBUL1
Bosnia and Herzegovina — HT d.d. (ERONET)
Greece — Cosmote1
Poland — Era – over 13 million customers
Romania — Cosmote1
  • 1 Deutsche Telekom and Greece each have 25 percent plus one of the shares of parent company OTE.

Advertising Campaigns

Beginning in 2009, T-Mobile embarked upon a progressive marketing campaign with hip commercials featuring, Charles Barkley, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard and former 227 star Jackée Harry.

In 2002, an advertisement for UK television for when T-Mobile introduced picture messaging; was aired, which shows the face of a baby be spread around a built-up area as things like billboards, posters, shirts, and on newspapers. The advertisement featuring the Röyksopp song "So Easy", and the song was consequently a #21 hit single in the UK, along with its double a-side partner "Remind Me". The advertisement is believed to have inspired music videos like Where Is the Love? (by The Black Eyed Peas) and Have a Nice Day (by Bon Jovi).[citation needed]

Sponsorship

A T-Mobile liveried Ayats Bravo coach used in a World Cup promotion in partnership with UK mobile retailer Phones4u.

T-Mobile was the official sponsor of English Football League Championship side West Bromwich Albion. They also previously sponsored Rotherham United as well as Scottish Premier League clubs Rangers and Celtic.

As well as current kit sponsors for Bayern Munich, Ferencvárosi TC, and West Bromwich Albion, T-Mobile were co-sponsors of Everton with the One2One brand and they also sponsored the 2002 FA Youth Cup Final. T-Mobile were also kit sponsors for English club Birmingham City. The phone company is also involved in sponsoring leagues, such as the Austrian Football Bundesliga, which is currently named the T-Mobile Bundesliga. It was also the official global mobile phone carrier for the 2006 FIFA World Cup football tournament in Germany and sponsored its own cycling team, the T-Mobile Team (now Team HTC-Columbia).

T-Mobile also has banner ads at some matches of Mexico's top league, Primera División de México, despite not having a presence in that country.[30] Presumably, this is an attempt to market to the United States' Hispanic and more specifically Mexican community; many top-flight Mexican matches are televised in the U.S. on both English- and Spanish-language networks.

See also

References

  1. ^ Deutsche Telekom: Deutsche Telekom stabilizes business in the second quarter and confirms forecast for full year 2009
  2. ^ Telefonica grabs O2 from under T-Mobile's nose
  3. ^ T-Mobile.de Mobilfunk History
  4. ^ Maxim Magazine 100th issue, April 2006, p166
  5. ^ T-Mobile dringt Vodafone terug
  6. ^ Shareholding
  7. ^ "Mercury One-2-One challenges the U.K. cellular competition, Mobile Phone News, Sept 13, 1993 "
  8. ^ History ~ GSM World
  9. ^ "One 2 One sale agreed". BBC News. 1999-08-06. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
  10. ^ One 2 One to rebrand as T-Mobile
  11. ^ T-Mobile refreshes consumer price plans
  12. ^ The T-Mobile, Orange Merger: How will it Affect you? | CHOOSE BROADBAND
  13. ^ "T-Mobile and Orange in UK merger". BBC News. 2009-09-08. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
  14. ^ Co-signed letter to European Competition Commissioner in relation to joint venture between Orange and T-Mobile Consumer Focus/Communications Consumer Panel. December 21, 2009
  15. ^ "Orange and T-Mobile deal 'threatens competition'". BBC News. February 3, 2010. Retrieved March 1, 2010.
  16. ^ "Orange and T-Mobile cleared for mobile merger by EU". BBC News. March 1, 2010. Retrieved March 1, 2010.
  17. ^ Orange newsroom | Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom announce completion of UK merger
  18. ^ Orange newsroom | Orange and T-Mobile Unveil Joint Venture Name, Team, Vision and Plans
  19. ^ a b "T-Mobile staff sold personal data". BBC News. 2009-11-17. Retrieved 2009-11-17.
  20. ^ "Mobile phone customers' records are sold illegally" (PDF). Information Commissioner's Office. 2009-11-17. Retrieved 2009-11-17.
  21. ^ T-Mobile UK & Virgin Network - Disruption - Mobiholics
  22. ^ Unstrung – T-Mobile USA Reports Q3 – Wireless News Wire
  23. ^ T-Mobile to Double HSPA+ Speeds in 2011?
  24. ^ VoiceStream, Deutsche Telekom Seal $50.7B Deal (Reuters)
  25. ^ T-Mobile experiencing widespread outage, CNet
  26. ^ Dudley, Brier (November 4, 2009). "T-Mobile says software glitch jammed network Tuesday". The Seattle Times.
  27. ^ Wi-Fi Networking News: T-Mobile Loses Starbucks; AT&T Becomes Wi-Fi Hotspot Giant
  28. ^ "Starbucks Dumps T-Mobile in Favor of AT&T". The Washington Post. February 12, 2008. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
  29. ^ T-Mobile Group Report
  30. ^ PoderPDA - Lista de foros - PoderPDA
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