Retevisión was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

telecommunications company; of which a portion of it continues to exist as Cellnex Telecom, which was spun off from

Abertis Abertis Infraestructuras, S.A. () is a Spanish worldwide corporation engaged in toll road management. The company is headquartered in Madrid. The company runs over 8,600 kilometres of toll roads in the world. In October 2018, it was acquired by I ...

in 2015.

History

Retevisión was founded in 1989 as a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

, a division of the national public broadcaster

Radiotelevisión Española The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española (''Spanish Radio and Television'', RTVE), is the Spanish national public Broadcasting, television and radio broadcaster. It is a state-owned enterprise f ...

(RTVE). Its original mission was to provide transmission facilities for television and radio signals throughout Spain. In 1996, the First Aznar government of the People's Party decided to liberalise the Spanish telecommunications market, and a license was granted to Retevisión. In 1997, it was decided to move the company headquarters from

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. That same year Retevisión was acquired by

Telecom Italia TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.) is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples (with the Telecom Italia Tower), which provides fixed, public and mobile telephony, and DSL data services. It is ...

and the Spanish electricity utilities

Endesa Endesa, S.A. (, originally an initialism for ''Empresa Nacional de Electricidad, S.A''.) is a Spanish multinational electric utility company, the largest in the country. The firm, a majority-owned subsidiary of the Italian utility company Enel, ...

and

Union Fenosa Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Union ...

. The company was operating without its own landline network, and users of

Telefónica , S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company with registered office and headquarters located in two different places, both in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the ...

that were Retevision subscribers needed to prepend the prefix 050, which was later replaced by 1050, to the number in order to route calls to Retevisión. At first, customers could only call other provinces with Retevisión. With the liberalisation of the

local loop In telephony, the local loop (also referred to as the local tail, subscriber line, or in the aggregate as the last mile) is the physical link or circuit that connects from the demarcation point of the customer premises to the edge of the co ...

in September 1998, Retevisión customers could make local calls. That same year, Retevisión bought two pioneering Spanish

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

s Servicom and RedesTB, and launched their own ISP under the brand iddeo. In June 1998 the company obtained Spain's third license for

mobile telephony Mobile telephony is the provision of wireless telephone services to mobile phones, distinguishing it from fixed-location telephony provided via landline phones. Traditionally, telephony specifically refers to voice communication, though th ...

(after

Movistar Movistar () is a major telecommunications provider owned by Telefónica, operating in Spain and Hispanic American countries. It is the largest provider of landline, broadband, Mobile telephony, mobile services, and pay television (Movistar Plus+ ...

and Airtel Móviles), and began operations in 1999 under the brand name

Amena Amena Abdulelah Ahmed Alsameai (born 2 June 2001), better known as AmenA, is a Swedish-Yemeni singer. She came to Sweden from Yemen as a refugee in 2019, where she started residing in Vimmerby. She participated in Idol 2021, where she placed nin ...

through its subsidiary

Retevisión Móvil Retevisión was a Spain, Spanish telecommunications company; of which a portion of it continues to exist as Cellnex, Cellnex Telecom, which was spun off from Abertis in 2015. History Retevisión was founded in 1989 as a public company, a divis ...

. Throughout 1999 it also launched data services over IP for enterprises (

VPN Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...

networking sites), and direct voice and data by radio link, although the latter services had little success. In Summer 2000, iddeo launched

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...

services for businesses. In the Basque Country,

Euskaltel Euskaltel, S.A. is a Spanish telecommunications company based in Derio, Basque Country. It was formed in 1995 in a joint effort by the Basque Government and several Basque saving banks. Its name is literally translated in English as "Basque-Te ...

from its launch in 1995 retained its distribution exclusivity versus Retevisión therefore fixed telephony and the transmission of radio and television signals was performed by Euskaltel. The brand Retevisión as a telephony operator was abandoned in 2002 in favour of the new name Auna, a merger between Retevisión and the cable operator

AunaCable AunaCable was a cable television, telephone and Internet product in 2002 from the merger of several regional Spanish carriers, including Madritel, Catalan Menta, the Andalusian Supercable, the Aragonese Aragón de Cable and Canarias Telecom. ...

(both companies being part of

Grupo Auna Grupo Auna was a telecommunications company that emerged from the former Retevisión, which was one of the two companies that were created in Spain in 1996 after the liberalization of telecommunications. The group was divided into two parts in 20 ...

). In 2005, the cable television, fixed telephony and ISP portions of Auna were absorbed by the operator

ONO ONO, Ono or Ōno may refer to: Places Fiji * Ono Island (Fiji) Israel * Kiryat Ono * Ono, Benjamin, ancient site Italy * Ono San Pietro Ivory Coast * Ono, Ivory Coast, a village in Comoé District Japan * Ōno Castle, Fukuoka * ...

. In 2006,

France Télécom Orange S.A. (; formerly , stylised as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation founded in 1988 and headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. ''Orange'' has been the corporation' ...

acquired the mobile telephony operations of Amena, which led to the creation of

Orange España Orange Espagne S.A.U., more commonly known by its trade name of Orange España, is a mobile network operator in Spain owned by MásOrange. It was previously known as Amena, a brand of Retevisión, until 2005, when it was bought by France Tél� ...

on 1 August that same year. Retevisión's remaining audiovisual-related portfolio was then sold by Grupo Auna to Abertis in 2003, which subsequently spun off that particular business into a new company called Cellnex Telecom in 2015.

References

External links

Website

Amena

ONO

Abertis Telecom
1989 establishments in Spain Cable television companies of Spain Telecommunications companies of Spain Telecommunications companies established in 1989 2002 mergers and acquisitions 2005 mergers and acquisitions 2006 mergers and acquisitions 2014 mergers and acquisitions {{Spain-company-stub