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Vodafone UK
Vodafone Limited, trading as Vodafone UK (stylised as vodafone), is a British telecommunications company, owned since May 2025 by VodafoneThree, a joint venture between Vodafone Group (51%) and Three owner CK Hutchison Holdings (49%). The country's first cellular phone call was made on the Vodafone network in 1985, and the world's first SMS text message in 1992. Vodafone is the third-largest mobile network operator in the United Kingdom, with 18.3 million subscribers as of February 2025, followed by O2, EE and its network partner Three. In June 2023, it was announced that subject to regulatory approval Vodafone UK and Three UK will merge to create Britain's biggest mobile network. The merger was approved by the Competition and Markets Authority in December 2024, and completed in May 2025, with the company becoming part of VodafoneThree. Within six months of the merger, customers are expected to receive access to a shared Vodafone-Three network. History Mobile netw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unlike regional branches or divisions, subsidiaries are considered to be distinct entities from their parent companies; they are required to follow the laws of where they are incorporated, and they maintain their own executive leadership. Two or more subsidiaries primarily controlled by same entity/group are considered to be sister companies of each other. Subsidiaries are a common feature of modern business, and most multinational corporations organize their operations via the creation and purchase of subsidiary companies. Examples of holding companies are Berkshire Hathaway, Jefferies Financial Group, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Citigroup, which have subsidiaries involved in many different Industry (e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Competition And Markets Authority
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the principal competition regulator in the United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for promoting competitive markets and tackling unfair behaviour. The CMA launched in shadow form on 1 October 2013 and began operating fully on 1 April 2014, when it assumed many of the functions of the previously existing Competition Commission and Office of Fair Trading, which were abolished. The CMA also has consumer protection responsibilities and took on new digital markets regulation responsibilities in late 2024 under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The CMA alongside the European Commission, the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, is a globally important antitrust agency. History On 15 March 2012, the UK Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) announced proposals for strengthening competition in the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charitable Organization
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a charitable organization (and of charity) varies between countries and in some instances regions of the country. The Charity regulators, regulation, the tax treatment, and the way in which charity law affects charitable organizations also vary. Charitable organizations may not use any of their funds to profit individual persons or entities. However, some charitable organizations have come under scrutiny for spending a disproportionate amount of their income to pay the salaries of their leadership. Financial figures (e.g. tax refunds, revenue from fundraising, revenue from the sale of goods and services or revenue from investment, and funds held in reserve) are indicators to assess the financial sustainability of a charity, especiall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Justgiving
JustGiving is a global online social platform for giving. The firm's headquarters are located in Bankside, London, England. History In 2000, Zarine Kharas and Anne-Marie Huby founded JustGiving (initially clickforaction.com), a company to provide online tools and processing services to enable the collection of charitable donations. 2006 was the firm's first profitable year. In June 2011, the firm claimed that it had provided its service for more than 9,000 UK registered charities and 1.9 million fundraising pages for users, collecting more than £770 million since launch. The cumulative total passed £1 billion in March 2012. The cumulative total passed £4 billion in June 2016. Fees JustGiving charged a 5% fee on all donations to cover the cost of running the business until March 2019, when the fee was made voluntary. In 2008, ''The Guardian'' reported Kharas as acknowledging that "the commission charged by justgiving.com is controversial". Notab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blindness
Visual or vision impairment (VI or VIP) is the partial or total inability of visual perception. In the absence of treatment such as corrective eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment, visual impairment may cause the individual difficulties with normal daily tasks, including reading and walking. The terms ''low vision'' and ''blindness'' are often used for levels of impairment which are difficult or impossible to correct and significantly impact daily life. In addition to the various permanent conditions, fleeting temporary vision impairment, amaurosis fugax, may occur, and may indicate serious medical problems. The most common causes of visual impairment globally are uncorrected refractive errors (43%), cataracts (33%), and glaucoma (2%). Refractive errors include near-sightedness, far-sightedness, presbyopia, and astigmatism (eye), astigmatism. Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness. Other disorders that may cause visual problems include age-related macular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Access Communication System
Total Access Communication System (TACS) and ETACS are variants of Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) which were announced as the choice for the first two UK national cellular systems in February 1983, less than a year after the UK government announced the T&Cs for the two competing mobile phone networks in June 1982. This 1G technology is now obsolete. History Vodafone (known then as Racal-Vodafone) opted for a £30 million turnkey contract from Ericsson (ERA) to design, build and set up its initial network of 100 base station sites. Cellnet (then known Telecom Securicor Cellular Radio Ltd) used development labs in the facilities at General Electric (later made part of Motorola) based at Lynchburg, Virginia, United States. The reason Cellnet used the General Electric labs was because the AMPS system was already in development there, and the company had set up a production facility in readiness for AMPS production in 1985 which the Cellnet TACS was to share. In March 1984 de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GPRS
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's Global System for Mobile Communications, global system for mobile communications (GSM). Networks and mobile devices with GPRS started to roll out around the year 2001; it offered, for the first time on GSM networks, seamless data transmission using Packet switching, packet data for an "always-on" connection (eliminating the need to "dial-up"), so providing improved Internet access for World Wide Web, web, email, Wireless Application Protocol, WAP services, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and others. Up until the rollout of GPRS, only circuit switched data was used in cellular networks, meaning that one or more radio channels were occupied for the entire duration of a data connection. On the other hand, on GPRS networks, data is broken into small packets and transmitted through available channels. This increased efficiency also gives it theoretical data ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thames Valley
The Thames Valley is an area in South East England that extends along the River Thames west of London towards Oxford. The area is a major tourist destination and economic hub on the M4 corridor, with a high concentration of technology companies. The area east of Reading is defined by Natural England as the Thames Valley National Character Area, while Thames Valley Police cover the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Geography As a National Character Area, the Thames Valley is bounded to the west by Reading, fanning out roughly in a wedge shape towards the fringes of London. It contains 38 Sites of Special Scientific Interest and significant amounts of broadleaf forest, including Burnham Beeches, Windsor Great Park and Richmond Park. Economy The Thames Valley is a technology hub centred around Reading, and stretching as far out as Swindon, Oxford and Slough. It is part of the M4 corridor. Tourism As a tourist destination, the Thames Valley is close to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satellite Phone
A satellite telephone, satellite phone or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to other phones or the telephone network by radio link through satellites orbiting the Earth instead of terrestrial cell sites, as cellphones do. Therefore, they can work in most geographic locations on the Earth's surface, as long as open sky and the line-of-sight between the phone and the satellite are provided. Depending on the architecture of a particular system, coverage may include the entire Earth or only specific regions. Satellite phones provide similar functionality to terrestrial mobile telephones; voice calling, text messaging, and low-bandwidth Internet access are supported through most systems. The advantage of a satellite phone is that it can be used in such regions where local terrestrial communication infrastructures, such as landline and cellular networks, are not available. Satellite phones are popular on expeditions into remote locations where there is no reliable ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Globalstar
Globalstar, Inc. is an American telecommunications company that operates a satellite constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) for satellite phone, low-speed data transmission and earth observation. The Globalstar second-generation constellation consists of 25 satellites. History The Globalstar project was launched in 1991 as a joint venture of Loral Corporation and Qualcomm. On March 24, 1994, the two sponsors announced the formation of Globalstar LP, a limited partnership established in the U.S., with financial participation from eight other companies, including Alcatel, AirTouch, Deutsche Aerospace, Hyundai, and Vodafone. At that time, the company predicted the system would launch in 1998, based on an investment of $1.8 billion. Globalstar said in March 1994 that it expected to charge $0.65 per minute for cellular service, compared to $3 per minute from Iridium. By then it had a worldwide license from the World Administrative Radio Conference. Globalstar received its US spect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Message Service
Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, typically transmitted over cellular networks. Developed as part of the GSM standards, and based on the SS7 signalling protocol, SMS rolled out on digital cellular networks starting in 1993 and was originally intended for customers to receive alerts from their carrier/operator. The service allows users to send and receive text messages of up to 160 characters, originally to and from GSM phones and later also CDMA and Digital AMPS; it has since been defined and supported on newer networks, including present-day 5G ones. Using SMS gateways, messages can be transmitted over the Internet through an SMSC, allowing communication to computers, fixed landlines, and satellite. MMS was later introduced as an upgrade to SMS with "picture mess ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pager
A pager, also known as a beeper or bleeper, is a Wireless communication, wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays Alphanumericals, alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowledge, reply to, and originate messages using an internal transmitter. Pagers operate as part of a paging system which includes one or more fixed Transmitter, transmitters (or in the case of response pagers and two-way pagers, one or more Base transceiver station, base stations), as well as a number of pagers carried by Mobile phone, mobile users. These systems can range from a restaurant system with a single low power transmitter, to a nationwide system with thousands of high-power base stations. Pagers were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, and became widely used by the 1980s through the late 1990s and early 2000s. Later in the 21st century, the widespread availability of cellphones and smartphone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
