Orange Austria was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n mobile network operator. It started its business on 26 October 1998 as owner of the third

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 of the country, and the first provider operating in the GSM 1800 band. Since 2004, Orange (previously known as ''ONE'') successfully applied for a

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 ...

-License and offers since 2005 also UMTS Services. ONE's logo was a blue circle. It was rebranded as Orange on 22 September 2008. With 1.9 million customers (including approximately 180,000

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 ...

mobil customers) it is Austria's third largest provider with a market share of 20%. Orange cooperates with UPC Telekabel (a

Liberty Global Liberty Global plc is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Plc, Liberty Global B.V. and Liberty Global, Inc., with ...

company) for

landline 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 ...

and

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

offers. On 3 February 2012,

Hutchison Whampoa Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) was an investment holding company based in Hong Kong. It was a Fortune Global 500 company and one of the largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. HWL was an international corporation with a dive ...

announced that it would buy all of Orange Austria for US$1.7 billion. The deal closed on 3 January 2013. The combined business created a mobile carrier with 2.8 million customers and more than 20% market share in Austria. The Orange brand continued to operate in Austria until August 19, 2013, when its operations were merged into 3.

Ownership

Orange Austria was formerly owned by: *

France Télécom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 5 ...

: 35% *

Mid Europa Partners MidEuropa is an independent private equity player in Central and Eastern Europe focused on Central and Eastern Europe with approximately €5.3 billion of assets under management. Strategy MidEuropa seeks to take controlling stakes in its inve ...

: 65% On 3 February 2012, Hutchison 3G Austria acquired 100% of Orange Austria from Mid Europa and France Télécom for US$1.7 billion.

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...

advised Hutchison on the deal, while

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

advised France Télécom and Mid Europa Partners.Hutchison Whampoa to Buy Orange Austria for $1.7 Billion
WSJ February 3, 2012

Discount offers

Since 2005, Orange Austria initiated two subsidiary discount companies, Yesss and Eety.

Yesss

Yesss offers prepaid-services with various conditions. It shares the network with Orange Austria and operates under the network-codes 6998 and recently 681. The instant success of Yesss made Orange Austria's competitor A1 initiate a similar offer called BoB in 2006. Yesss itself offers neither cheap phones nor any kind of bonus-system. From time to time, there are special offers in cooperation with the supermarket Hofer. At its beginning, some of the Austrian mobile providers protested, because Yesss operates a free unlocking service and describes how to remove the

SIM lock SIM lock, simlock, network lock, carrier lock or (master) subsidy lock is a technical restriction built into GSM and CDMA mobile phones by mobile phone manufacturers for use by service providers to restrict the use of these phones to specific coun ...

from different phone models. Following the sale of Orange to Hutchison Whampoa, Yesss was sold off to

Mobilkom Austria A1 Telekom Austria (A1, ''A eins'') is the leading fixed and mobile network operator in Austria, with 5.4 million mobile and 2.3 million fixed-line customers. A1 Telekom Austria traces its origins to Austria's first GSM mobile phone network whi ...

Eety

Eety is pretty similar to Yesss, but very dedicated to

emigrant Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

s and

guest worker Foreign workers or guest workers are people who work in a country other than one of which they are a citizen. Some foreign workers use a guest worker program in a country with more preferred job prospects than in their home country. Guest worke ...

s. It offers localisation and support in many eastern- and south-European languages and offers low rates for calls to this areas. Calls to the UK/USA are also very cheap.

Other Austrian mobile providers

* A1 /

BoB Bob, BOB, or B.O.B. may refer to: Places *Mount Bob, New York, United States *Bob Island, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica People, fictional characters, and named animals *Bob (given name), a list of people and fictional characters *Bob (surname) ...

* 3 *

Magenta Telekom Magenta Telekom (T-Mobile Austria until 6 May 2019) is the second largest mobile and fixed company in Austria. It is owned by Deutsche Telekom. In 2017 it had 5.7 million customers. Its CEO is Andreas Bierwirth :de:Andreas_Bierwirth">de.html" ; ...

Telering 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 ...

References

External links

*
Yesss Website
yesss.at *
Eety Website
eety.at {{Orange S.A. Mobile phone companies of Austria Companies based in Vienna CK Hutchison Holdings Orange S.A.