Blu S.p.A. was an Italian

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

operating in the

mobile telephony Mobile telephony is the provision of telephone services to phones which may move around freely rather than stay fixed in one location. Telephony is supposed to specifically point to a voice-only service or connection, though sometimes the li ...

sector. It was active between 1999 and 2002.

History

The company was founded in 1999 through a partnership between Società Autostrade (through Sitec, 32%),

British Telecom BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...

(20%), Benetton (through the financial Edizione Holding, 9%),

Mediaset Mediaset Italia S.p.A., also known as Mediaset, is an Italian-based mass media company which is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country. The company is controlled by the holding company MFE - MediaForEurope. Founded in 1987 by former ...

(9%), Distacom (9%), BNL (7%),

Italgas Italgas S.p.A. is an Italian company specialised in the distribution of natural gas. It is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange and included in the FTSE MIB index. History The company was founded in Turin in 1837 under the name ''Compagnia di ...

(7%),

Caltagirone Caltagirone (; scn, Caltaggiruni ; Latin: ''Calata Hieronis'') is an inland city and ''comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administ ...

(7%) and Palatinus. Its slogan was ''Il futuro che non c'era"'' (''"The future that was not there"''). Its service began on May 15, 2000, using license number 61 that was issued shortly after the launch by the Italian Ministry of Communications. The services were valid for communications through the

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

system on the 1800 MHz frequency band; the signal, with its own network, was initially transmitted only in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

while in the rest of Italy, transmission occurred within the GSM network of other operators using national roaming agreements. With 430,000 users in September 2000, the company exceeded its initial target of 350,000 customers by the end of the year. A disagreement between British Telecom and the other shareholders about distributing shares put the company's participation in the auction for

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

licenses, which were initially confirmed, in doubt. The UMTS licenses were withdrawn on October 23. The case involved judicial trials that ended in January 2001 when the Lazio Regional Administrative Court annulled the government's confiscation of the surety of 4 trillion lire. In December 2000, the company continued its development, launching a

GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Insti ...

service which exceeded one million users in March 2001. In August of the same year, the company acquired the license for fixed telephony. Despite the continued expansion, with 1,600,000 customers at the end of 2001 and a market share of new activations of 13%, the first defections began among the company's partners. Edition renounced its shares in September 2001 after entry into the

Telecom Italia Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixe ...

group, and Mediaset followed in when it sold its shares in December 2001 to British Telecom. The company entered a phase of progressive demobilization. On August 6, 2002, the board of directors gave approval for the company's break-up, opting for the sale of the customer base (4% of the Italian market) and brand to

Wind Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...

, its mobile telephone systems to TIM, Wind and

Vodafone Omnitel Vodafone Italia S.p.A. (formerly Vodafone Omnitel N.V.) is an Italian telephone company, subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc. It has 30,153,000 mobile phone customers and 3,182,000 fixed phone lines, with respectively a market share of 28.5% and ...

, the share capital at TIM and other branches of the company at H3G. Blu transferred its assets to other companies on October 8, 2002.

References

External links

{{Italian mobile phone companies Italian companies disestablished in 2002 Mobile phone companies of Italy