Austria Until 2000, Magenta Telekom (known then as T-Mobile(austria)) was a shareholder of the former max.mobil. network. In April 2001, it acquired one hundred percent and subsequently introduced the T-Mobile brand in Austria by rebranding max.mobil. in April 2002 as T-Mobile Austria. It later rebranded again to Magenta Telekom on 6 May 2019, after acquiring the Austrian operations of
UPC from
Liberty Global in December 2017. In 2005, it acquired former competitor tele.ring from
Western Wireless International. It is now used as a discount brand. tele.ring is an Austrian mobile network operator. Since it was bought by Magenta Telekom (then T-Mobile) in 2006, it is no longer a legally independent company. Tele.ring is administratively independent and now acts primarily as a discount-offer, similar to Yesss and
BoB of
A1. In the past, tele.ring was known for their aggressive price-politics.
Croatia T-Mobile entered the Croatian market in October 1999 when DT initially acquired a thirty-five 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. Since January 1, 2010, Hrvatski Telekom and T-Mobile Croatia merged into one company on the Croatian market under the name Hrvatski Telekom (in English: Croatian Telecom); the T-Mobile brand remained active in the mobile-business area and T-Com in the fixed-business area until 2013 when they were replaced by unified brand "Hrvatski Telekom".
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 31 December 2014, 6 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. On 19 October 2005, T-Mobile was the first operator in the Czech Republic to launch this third-generation technology under the name
Internet 4G.
Germany , Germany Germany's initial mobile communications services were
radiotelephone systems that were owned and operated by the state postal monopoly,
Deutsche Bundespost. These early mobile communications networks were referred to as the "A" and "B" networks. Deutsche Bundespost Telekom built Germany's first cellular mobile network, an
analog,
first-generation system referred to as the "C" network or
C-Netz. The network became operational in 1985 and services were marketed under the C-Tel brand. Following
German reunification in 1990, the "C" network was extended to the former
East Germany. On 1 July 1992, Deutsche Bundespost Telekom's
DeTeMobil subsidiary began operating Germany's first
GSM 900
MHz frequency cellular network, which the organization referred to as
D-Netz. Digital GSM services were marketed under the "D1" brand and DeTeMobil continued to sell analog cellular services concurrently under the existing C-Tel brand. In 1994, DeTeMobil introduced
short message service (SMS) services. In 1996, DT began to brand its subsidiaries with the
T- prefix, renaming the DeTeMobil subsidiary
T-Mobil and
rebranding the GSM cellular network
T-D1. C-Netz was renamed to T-C-Tel. The T-C-Tel / C-Netz services were fully discontinued in 2000. D1 introduced
prepaid service called
Xtra in 1997. Despite the numerous changes in subsidiary names and brands, Germans sometimes continue to use the
T-D1 name within Germany and refer to T-Mobile as D1. On 1 April 2010, after the T-Home and T-Mobile German operations merged to form
Telekom Deutschland GmbH, a wholly owned DT subsidiary; the T-Mobile brand was discontinued in Germany and replaced with the
Telekom brand.
Hungary On 1 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), and its branding started to use
Telekom instead of
T-Mobile. T-Mobile also provides high-speed services, like
EDGE,
3G, and
HSDPA in Hungary's major cities.
North Macedonia In Republic of North Macedonia, T-Mobile was previously known as
Mobimak. The company has been operating in the Macedonian market since 1996. On 7 September 2006, Mobimak accepted the international T-Mobile branding. By June 2007, T-Mobile reached one million subscribers, out of which 85 percent were active and using their services. T-Mobile MK covers 98 percent of the population. It has a GSM 900 licence, 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 licence on 1 August 2007. From 1 July T-Mobile ceased to exist as a legal entity and was replaced by the Telekom brand. The carrier name is now
Telekom MK. The codes are 070/071/072.
Montenegro The 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 DT subsidiary. Although the acquisition by Magyar Telekom was done in 2005, it was not until 26 September 2006, that the MoNet GSM operator was re-branded as T-Mobile Montenegro. MoNet GSM launched on July 1, 2000, as part of
Telecom Montenegro. It became an independent incorporated limited-liability company a month later, on 1 August 2000. The company currently holds around 34 percent of the Montenegrin market and uses
GSM 900, GPRS, and
EDGE technologies. Since 21 June 2007,
3G/
UMTS services have been available in larger cities as well as on the coast.
Netherlands Deutsche Telekom entered the Dutch market by the acquisition of
Ben on 20 September 2002. In 2007, 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 third largest mobile telephone operator in the country behind
KPN and
Vodafone. As part of an acquisition of
Tele2 Netherlands by T-Mobile Netherlands, which was announced on December 15, 2017, the previous owner
Tele2 AB became a 25% shareholder in T-Mobile Netherlands. The company is now called Odido.
Poland T-Mobile Polska serves over thirteen million customers, and owns licenses for 900, 1800MHz bands which are used for GSM, 800, 900, 1800, 2100 2600MHz for LTE and 2100 (DSS), 3500MHz for 5G NR NSA. Formerly
Era, rebranding took place on 5 June 2011. T-Mobile Poland with
Orange Polska have consolidated their infrastructure.
Romania Telekom Romania Mobile Communications S.A. is a mobile network company in
Romania, wholly owned by
OTE, which in turn is controlled by
Deutsche Telekom, operating under Telekom brand. Telekom Romania Mobile had 3.5 million subscribers with 15% market share as of July 2021.
Slovakia The T-Mobile brand entered the
Slovak market in May 2005, after rebranding the EuroTel network from Eurotel Bratislava to
T-Mobile Slovensko nowadays
Telekom. The company Eurotel Bratislava was partially owned by Slovak Telekom, an incumbent fixed-line operator, which later acquired a one hundred percent stake in Eurotel Bratislava. T-Mobile International and DT never owned T-Mobile Slovensko directly; DT is partially owner of Slovak Telekom and thus T-Mobile International has procurement managing function within T-Mobile Slovensko. On 1 July 2010, Slovak Telekom and T-Mobile Slovensko merged into one company on the Slovak market under the name
Telekom; T-Mobile brand no more remains active in the mobile-business area, as well as the T-Com in the fixed-business area. The Telekom network provides services on three networks GSM (900/1800 MHz), UMTS (2100 MHz), Flash OFDM (450 MHz). Mobile data services are provided on 4G, 3G, GSM network with EDGE extension and on UMTS with DC-HSPA+ 42 Mbit/s and HSUPA 5,8 Mbit/s. Flash OFDM is one of two commercially successfully launched solely data networks in the world. It supports upload speed up to 5.8 Mbit/s.
United Kingdom shops in
Leeds T-Mobile UK started life as
Mercury One2One, the world's first GSM 1800 mobile network. It was originally operated by the now-defunct
Mercury Communications. Later known simply as
one2one, it was purchased by DT in 1999 and rebranded as T-Mobile in 2002. T-Mobile offered both
pay-as-you-go and pay-monthly contract phones. T-Mobile launched their 3G
UMTS services in the Autumn of 2003. T-Mobile UK's network was also used as the backbone network behind the
Virgin Mobile virtual network. In late 2007, it was confirmed that the
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 left T-Mobile and 3 with the largest HSDPA mobile phone network in the country. In 2009,
France Télécom's Orange and DT, T-Mobile's parent, announced they were in advanced talks to merge their UK operations to create the UK's largest mobile operator. In March 2010, the European Commission approved this 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. The merger was completed the following month, the new company's name later being announced as
EE. Orange and T-Mobile continued as separate brands in the market until 2015, both run by the new parent company. T-Mobile UK and Orange UK announced on 15 February 2015 the sale of
EE to
BT Group for £12.5B and to take shares of 12% within the BT Group as part of the deal.
United States T-Mobile US provides wireless voice, messaging, and data services in the United States mainland including
Alaska,
Hawaii,
Puerto Rico and the
U.S. Virgin Islands under the
T-Mobile and
Metro by T-Mobile brands. The company has the second-most subscribers in the U.S. market with over 129 million customers and annual revenues of $21.8 billion in 2024. Its nationwide network reaches 98 percent of Americans, through its EDGE 2G/HSPA 3G/HSPA+ 4G/4G LTE networks, as well as through roaming agreements
(see section: Radio frequency spectrum chart). ,
J. D. Power and Associates, a global marketing-information-services firm, ranked the company highest among major wireless carriers for retail-store satisfaction four years consecutively and highest for wireless customer care two years consecutively. The company owns licences to operate a 1900 MHz
GSM PCS digital
cellular network and
AWS UMTS digital cellular networks using 600 MHz, 700 MHz, 850 MHz, 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz covering areas of the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It provides coverage in areas where it does not own
radio frequency spectrum licenses via roaming agreements with other operators of compatible networks. In addition to its cellular mobile network, T-Mobile US operates a nationwide
Wi-Fi Internet-access network under the T-Mobile HotSpots brand. The T-Mobile HotSpot service offers access to a nationwide network of approximately 8,350 access points, installed in venues such as
Starbucks coffeehouses,
FedEx Office Office and Print Centers,
Hyatt hotels and resorts,
Red Roof Inns,
Sofitel hotels,
Novotel hotels, the airline clubs of
American Airlines,
Delta Air Lines,
United Airlines and
US Airways, and airports. T-Mobile US, Inc. traces its roots to the 1994 establishment of
VoiceStream Wireless PCS as a subsidiary of
Western Wireless Corporation. Spun off from parent Western Wireless on 3 May 1999, VoiceStream Wireless Corporation was purchased by Deutsche Telekom on 31 May 2001, for $35 billion and renamed T-Mobile USA, Inc. in July 2002. This legacy is reflected in some mismatch between US and German T-Mobile service, notably the frequency mismatch making phones inoperative in the other country, and picture messaging issues (non-delivery of pictures in text messages) between those networks. After a failed attempt by
AT&T in 2011 to purchase the company in a $39 billion stock and cash offer (which was withdrawn after being faced with significant regulatory and legal hurdles, along with heavy resistance from the U.S. government and the Sprint Corporation), T-Mobile USA announced its intent to merge with
MetroPCS Communications, Inc., the sixth largest carrier in the U.S., to improve its competitiveness with other national carriers; the deal was approved by the Department of Justice and
Federal Communications Commission in March 2013. The merger agreement gave
Deutsche Telekom the option to sell its 72% stake in the merged company, valued at around $14.2 billion, to a third-party before the end of the 18-month
lock-up period. On 1 May 2013, the combined company, now known as T-Mobile US, began trading on the
New York Stock Exchange as a public company.
Merger with Sprint On 29 April 2018, T-Mobile and
Sprint announced a $26 billion merger deal, with the resulting company to operate under the name T-Mobile. Federal Communications Commission Chairman
Ajit Pai announced that he would back the merger. On 11 February 2020, the deal was approved by a federal judge. The merger was completed on 1 April 2020 with Deutsche Telekom holding owning 43% of the company,
SoftBank at 24% and the remaining 33% to the public shareholders. As part of the merger, T-Mobile US acquired
Assurance Wireless, the service subsidized by the federal
Lifeline Assistance program, a government benefit program supported by the federal
Universal Service Fund. ==Marketing==