NOS, SGPS S.A. is a Portuguese

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 ...

and

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

company who provides

mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ( ...

and

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 ...

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

and

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. The company resulted from the merger in 2013 of two of the country's major telecommunications companies: Zon Multimédia (formerly known as PT Multimédia, a spun-off media arm of

Portugal Telecom Altice Portugal (formerly known as Portugal Telecom or PT) is the largest telecommunications service provider in Portugal. Since June 2, 2015, the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Altice Europe, a multinational cable and telecommuni ...

) and

Sonae Sonae is a multinational business group based in Maia, Porto District, Portugal. It is present in 90 countries, operating in several sectors, including retail, financial services, shopping centres management, software and information systems, ...

's Optimus Telecommunications. NOS owns premium movie channels

TVCine TVCine is a Portugal, Portuguese premium television brand used on four movie channels, operated by NOS (Portuguese media company), NOS. They showcase recent movies and premieres from all the major studios, as well as comedy, action, classic and old ...

and has a 25% stake in the Sport TV television network. It also operates 4 channels in joint-venture with AMC Networks International Southern Europe. NOS Audiovisuais (formerly ZON Lusomundo) is a

home-video Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming med ...

and cinema film distributor and operates Nos Cinema, the largest cinema chain of Portugal.

History

NOS was founded as TVCabo in 1994, and was the third cable operator to be founded in Portugal (the first was the regional Cabo TV Madeirense, which was founded in 1992, followed by Bragatel early on in 1994). The first customer was connected in November 1994. Initially the channel offer consisted of thirty channels and the number of Portuguese-speaking channels was initially limited to the terrestrial channels, with the number of Portuguese-speaking channels increasing as the years went on. The company might be considered a Portuguese dot-com. In the PT Multimédia days, it brought

SAPO (a successful web portal and search engine, sold to its parent company in 2005),

Lusomundo NOS Audiovisuais (formerly ZON Lusomundo) is a Portuguese integrated media corporation founded in 1953, which has major interests in movie distribution, cinema theaters and media assets. It was founded with the purpose of movie distribution, and ...

(a successful movie distributor, movie theater operator included in the spun off company and, formerly, the owner of the

Diário de Notícias ''Diário de Notícias'' () is a Portuguese daily newspaper published in Lisbon, Portugal. Established since 1864, the paper is considered a newspaper of record for Portugal. History and profile ''Diário de Notícias'' was first published in ...

newspaper and the TSF radio, which were sold to Controlinveste the same year as SAPO was sold) and several TV channels such as SportTV, CNL (now

SIC Notícias SIC Notícias () is the cable news channel of the Portuguese television network SIC (''Sociedade Independente de Comunicação'') and the second thematic channel of the station. It is available on basic cable and satellite. It replaced CNL (''C ...

) and

( MOV was only created after the spin-off). On 17 January 2008, ZON announced it would acquire

TVTEL TVTEL (TVTEL Comunicações, S.A.) was a Portuguese digital satellite and cable pay television service provider. The satellite service started on June 26, 2007, and it was on the Eurobird 9 satellite, broadcasting FTA and Conax-encrypted channel ...

, its main competitor in both cable and satellite broadcasting in Porto region. Thus, ZON was strengthening its position due to the appearance of a new significant rival, MEO from

, using

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded med ...

and satellite broadcasting systems, leaving only one other competing cable television and Internet operator in Portugal, Cabovisão. On 29 September 2008, ZON Multimédia announced the new mobile product ZON Mobile (

MVNO A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobile ...

), the first real quad play operator in Portugal. In November 2008, ZON announced that it would enter the contest for the fifth channel that would be created at the same time as

Digital Terrestrial Television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' ...

is introduced in Portugal. On 17 March 2010, ZON renamed its cable and satellite television service as ZON TV, dropping the 16-year-old TV Cabo brand. In 2013, a merger with Optimus (which also included Optimus Clix, Optimus Kanguru, Optimus Tag, Smart and WTF) was approved and the company was renamed to ZON Optimus. In May 2014, the two brands ZON and Optimus were merged into one single brand, called "NOS" (which is pronounced just like "nós", the Portuguese for “we”, “nodes” or “knots”).

References

External links

* {{Authority control, state=expanded Telecommunications companies established in 1994 Companies based in Lisbon Television in Portugal Internet service providers of Portugal Mobile phone companies of Portugal Cable television companies VoIP companies Portuguese brands Portuguese companies established in 1994

History

See also

References

External links