Comviq (originally Comvik) is since 2009 a
Swedish
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Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
prepaid and
postpaid
The postpaid mobile phone is a mobile phone for which service is provided by a prior arrangement with a mobile network operator. The user in this situation is billed after the fact according to their use of mobile services at the end of each mont ...
mobile phone
flanker brand
In marketing, a fighter brand (sometimes called a fighting brand or a flanker brand) is a lower-priced offering launched by a company to take on, and ideally take out, specific competitors that are attempting to under-price them. Unlike traditional ...
, fully owned by
Tele2
Tele2 AB is a Swedish telecommunications operator headquartered in the Kista Science City, Stockholm, Sweden. It is a major telephone operator in Sweden, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Tele2 also has a 25% share in T-Mobile Netherland ...
. The original Comvik operation is the predecessor to two listed companies:
Tele2
Tele2 AB is a Swedish telecommunications operator headquartered in the Kista Science City, Stockholm, Sweden. It is a major telephone operator in Sweden, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Tele2 also has a 25% share in T-Mobile Netherland ...
and
Millicom
Millicom International Cellular SA (NASDAQ U.S.: TIGO, NASDAQ Stockholm: TIGO_SDB) is a Luxembourgish fixed line and mobile telecommunications services provider dedicated to emerging markets in Latin America operating under the Tigo brand. As of D ...
.
Comvik
![Photo detail - excerpt from an article in Dagens Industri 1987](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Photo_detail_-_excerpt_from_an_article_in_Dagens_Industri_1987.jpg)
The original Comvik was established in 1981 in an attempt to break the existing de facto state-sanctioned telecommunications monopoly held by
Televerket at the time. During the 1980s, investor
Jan Stenbeck
Jan Hugo Robert Arne Stenbeck (; 14 November 1942 – 19 August 2002) was a Swedish business leader, media pioneer, sailor and financier. He was head of Kinnevik Group from 1976 and founded among other things the companies Comviq, Invik & C ...
's strategy was to pursue, break up and create alternatives to the existing Swedish monopolies in service sectors including telephony and media. In the late 1970s, Mr Stenbeck's
Investment AB Kinnevik
Kinnevik AB () is a Swedish investment company that was founded in 1936 by the Stenbeck, Klingspor and von Horn families.
Kinnevik is an active and long-term owner investing primarily in digital consumer businesses. Current CEO, Georgi Ganev, w ...
started to buy a number of smaller companies in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
and
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
that operated manual communication networks for car based equipment. Through an operator the driver could reach the public telephone network. Eventually these companies were merged and rebranded as AB Företagstelefon in Stockholm. In parallel – and in the quiet – the plans were more ambitious. Completely new equipment was purchased, new telephone terminals were developed and then on 1 July 1981 Comvik launched Sweden's first automatic analogue mobile telephony network, three months ahead of Televerket's launch of its
NMT
NMT may refer to:
Science and technology
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network.
Since Televerket had a monopoly on telecommunications and the radio spectrum, a conflict arose between Televerket and Comvik. After many very public arguments where Televerket even threatened to disconnect Comvik from the public telephone network, the then-
non-socialist government gave Comvik permission to continue and expand to a limited extent. Comvik asked for and got a few more frequencies. Finally Comvik had 27 frequencies. Televerkets NMT system had 180 frequencies. Comvik had to expand into
cell-based technology that today forms the basis of
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 ...
. The Swedish-based
Ericsson
(lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...
sold no equipment to Comvik who instead had to develop the technology themselves using a mixture of suppliers. Comvik built up a customer base of 20,000 subscribers. In order to compete with Televerket they had a lower per-minute rate and offered free calls on evenings and weekends. Comvik also launched several value added services aiming at small businesses.
Comvik received the “Service Company of the Year” award by the Swedish business newspaper
Dagens Industri in 1987 on the grounds that Comvik broke up the existing monopoly and introduced customer choice. Because of the competitive situation, it was difficult to operate. There were no additional frequencies available, the customer base could not be increased and the company suffered heavy losses. However, with the stoic attitude and changing public attitudes versus monopolies, Comvik was finally awarded a formal
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 as ...
license in 1988 to be operated in competition with Televerket.
Comvik International
With the help from its Comvik experience Kinnevik also acquired mobile licenses around the globe and initially used the “Comvik International” moniker. Networks were built in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
,
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
(
Mobifone
Vietnam Mobile Telecom Services One Member Limited Liability Company (with the brand MobiFone vi, Tổng công ty Viễn Thông MobiFone) is a major Vietnamese mobile network operator headquartered in Trung Hoa Nhan Chinh, Hanoi. Founded on 16 ...
),
Mauritius
Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...
(
Emtel
Emtel Ltd. is a telecommunications company based in Ebene City, Mauritius. Launched on 29 May 1989 – Emtel Ltd became the first mobile telephony operator in the Southern Hemisphere. This took place under the aegis of The Currimjee Jeewanjee G ...
) and other countries. Those activities later became the founding pillars of
Millicom International Cellular, of which the latter now primarily operates in various African and South American countries under the
Tigo
Millicom International Cellular SA (NASDAQ U.S.: TIGO, NASDAQ Stockholm: TIGO_SDB) is a Luxembourgish fixed line and mobile telecommunications services provider dedicated to emerging markets in Latin America operating under the Tigo brand. As of D ...
brand name.
Recent history
In 1991, Kinnevik branded its new GSM network as “Comviq” and said network was finally launched the following year. The old Comvik name was retained for the parallel-operating analog network for another few years before it was phased out.
Comviq GSM merged with ''
Tele2
Tele2 AB is a Swedish telecommunications operator headquartered in the Kista Science City, Stockholm, Sweden. It is a major telephone operator in Sweden, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Tele2 also has a 25% share in T-Mobile Netherland ...
'' in 1997, but the name Comviq was retained as a brand, together with Tele2's own brand ''Tele2 Mobile''. In 2004 name was changed to Tele2Comviq. In 2007 the brand was completely replaced by Tele2 brand.
In 1997, the mother company introduced ''Comviq Kontant'' as the first prepaid card in Sweden. Despite Tele2Comviq being dropped for GSM, the Comviq name was retained for the prepaid cards with a new logo and design introduced to distinguish it as a debit card. In 2009 the Comviq brand was re-launched again as a very price competitive and simplistic prepaid SIM card brand, also now including fixed-priced, no binding contract postpaid subscription plans. Nowadays, Comviq operates on
2G 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 as ...
,
4G LTE and (since 7 September 2021) on
5G NR on the
Net4Mobility
Net4Mobility is a joint venture between Telenor Sweden and Tele2 Sweden. The company’s main goal is to build, own and operate a GSM (2G), LTE (4G) and 5G NR Network and Transmission Network in Sweden. The mobile network covers 99 percent of the ...
network which is also
shared
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with Tele2 and
Telenor Sverige
Telenor Sverige (previously Vodafone Sweden, Europolitan and Nordic Tel), is a mobile phone, IPTV and Internet service provider in Sweden, owned by Telenor. Telenor Sverige's network covers 99 percent of the country's population, with telecom in ...
, as well as on
3G 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 ...
on the
SUNAB network which is also shared with Tele2 and
Telia.
See also
*
T 641/00
T 641/00, also known as ''Two identities/COMVIK'', is a decision of a Technical Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), issued on September 26, 2002. It is a landmark decision regarding the patentable subject matter requirement and i ...
References
*Karlsson, Magnus, 1964-. The liberalisation of telecommunications in Sweden: technology and regime change from the 1960s to 1993. 1998. -
*Teldok 28. ''The building of a world Industry. The impact of Entrepreneurship on Swedish mobile Telephony''. Pages 28–39. 45
External links
Official website for today's brandOfficial website for Tele2Official website for Millicom
{{Kinnevik Group
Mobile phone companies of Sweden