Telfort was a brand of Dutch mobile

telecommunication 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 ...

company KPN. It operated a

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 ...

mobile telecommunications service in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. It marketed itself as being the cheapest option available, and went to some lengths to give the appearance of being a no frills operator. The company was formed in 1997 as a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between

British Telecommunications BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broa ...

(BT) and

Nederlandse Spoorwegen Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS; ; en, "Dutch Railways") is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. It is a Dutch state-owned company founded in 1938. The Dutch rail network is one of the busiest in the European Union, and t ...

(Dutch Railways). In 2000, BT bought out Nederlandse Spoorwegen's shareholding. The group became part of the BT Wireless business and after its spin-off as mmO2, became known as O2 Netherlands. However, in 2003, O2 sold the company to Greenfield Capital Partners. It then reverted to the Telfort name. In July 2005 Telfort was sold to telephone company KPN. In October 2007, KPN, which had bought the Dutch operations of Tiscali some months earlier, rebranded Tiscali's Internet services as Telfort Internet. It has, since then, expanded its operations to include fixed phone lines and digital television (

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 ...

) subscriptions. In 2018, Telfort ceased to exist as a separate legal entity and became a brand name of KPN. In January 2019, KPN announced that it would eventually phase out the Telfort brand and continue operations under the KPN brand. The Telfort brand ceased accepting new customers on 1 May 2019. Existing mobile customers were migrated to the KPN brand in January 2020. Migration of fixed-line VDSL customers started in September 2020.

References

{{Dutch mobile operators BT Group Dutch brands KPN Mobile phone companies of the Netherlands Nederlandse Spoorwegen Telecommunications companies established in 1997 Telecommunications companies disestablished in 2019 1997 establishments in the Netherlands 2019 disestablishments in the Netherlands