m:tel

d.o.o. A private limited company is any type of business entity in "private" ownership used in many jurisdictions, in contrast to a publicly listed company, with some differences from country to country. Examples include the '' LLC'' in the United Sta ...

Podgorica is a

telecommunications company A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

. It is a 51-49% joint venture between

Telekom Srbija Telekom Srbija a.d. Beograd is a Serbian state-owned telecommunications operator. It was founded in May 1997 as a joint-stock company, by spinning off the telecommunications business from PTT Srbija (present-day „ Pošta Srbije"). In April 201 ...

and

Telekom Srpske m:tel a.d. Banja Luka (formerly Telekom Srpske a.d. Banja Luka) is a telecommunications company based in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company is owned by Telekom Srbija, and is the second largest telecommunications co ...

(Telekom Srbija owns 65% of Telekom Srpske).

History

On 9 May 2007, the company obtained a licence to become the third mobile operator in Montenegro, along with a license for

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 ...

and

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 ...

technologies. The company officially launched its business on 9 July 2007 using the 068 dialing prefix. Initially, the company was 51-49% joint venture between Telekom Srbija and Ogalar BV (Dutch-based company controlled by

Delta Holding Delta Holding is a Serbian holding company with the headquarters in Belgrade. Delta Holding performs a variety of services, such as agribusiness, real estate and wholesale. It employs around 3,600 people, making it one of the largest non-governm ...

). m:tel plans to invest €120 million, and eventually grow to 150 employees. Initially, its signal covered a relatively small area from Montenegrin coastline to capital Podgorica (about 30% of the country's territory). Initial goals were to have the m:tel signal available in most Montenegrin towns by September 2007. Plans to be achieved by the end of 2007 consisted of covering 90% of the country's territory and gaining 15-20%

market-share Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a ...

in a country that at the time of m:tel's arrival had 690,000 mobile subscribers. The company announced plans to offer

fixed telephony A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

services as well as

WiMax Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...

. The company announced that it sold 12,000 prepaid packages with

SIM card file:SIM-Karte von Telefónica O2 Europe - Standard und Micro.jpg, A typical SIM card (mini-SIM with micro-SIM cutout) file:Sim card.png, A smart card taken from a Global System for Mobile Communications, GSM mobile phone file:Simkarte NFC SecureE ...

s during its first official day of operation. As of the end of August 2007, Montenegin Telecommunications Agency has announced that m:tel held 12.8% of the Montenegrin mobile telephony market. Its more established competitors

ProMonte One Montenegro (full legal name: One Crna Gora DOO) is a mobile phone operator in Montenegro. History In November 1995, PTT of Montenegro and European Telecom Luxembourg signed a contract on establishing a limited liability company in the aim o ...

and

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic (T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland (T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobile ...

held 50% and 37.2%, respectively. On October 19, 2007, m:tel announced the beginning of their fixed telephony operations in Montenegro, ending T-Com Montenegro's monopoly in the fixed telephony business. M:tel will be using the (0)78 prefix and is currently available in

Podgorica Podgorica (Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Подгорица, ; Literal translation, lit. 'under the hill') is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Montenegro, largest city of Montenegro. The city was formerly known as Titograd ...

. M:tel is hoping to provide fixed telephony and internet services to other cities throughout Montenegro by the end of the year. During mid-November 2007, the company announced that its signal is present in every single one of Montenegro's 21 municipalities, accounting for the 80% of the country's populated territory, and able to reach 91% of the total population. At the end of November 2007, Montenegin Telecommunications Agency announced that m:tel's market share in Montenegro (a market of 992,000 mobile sets at this time) increased to 22.66%. Its competitors ProMonte and T-Mobile at this time held 43.47% and 33.87%, respectively. On February 3, 2010 Ogalar BV (Dutch-based company controlled by

) sold its 49% share to M:tel BiH (Telekom Srpske).

References

External links

Official website

Mtel uvodi fiksnu telefoniju u CG
B92, 31 August 2007
CG: M:tel preuzeo 12,8% tržišta
B92, 18 September 2007 {{Montenegrin mobile phone companies Mobile phone companies of Montenegro Companies based in Podgorica