BaneTele was a Norwegian part state owned telecommunications

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

previously part of the

Norwegian State Railways Vygruppen, branded as Vy, is a government-owned railway company which operates most passenger train services and many bus services in Norway. The company is owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport. Its sub-brands include Vy Buss coach se ...

. The company provided stem

fiberoptic cable A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable, but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with ...

network in Norway along the railway and power grid. The company had its headquarters in Oslo. The company only offered the central network capacity, not any content. Along with

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, ...

it was the only company to offer central network services, covering 70 cities north to Tromsø. The company sold its products to smaller customers through agents or other operators while larger customers could purchase directly from BaneTele. In total the BaneTele network was 12,500 km long.

History

The Norwegian State Railways (NSB) built a parallel copper network along the railway for internal communication and signaling; by 1899 this network was complete. In 1985 NSB started the construction of a fibre network. By 1996 this was made a division of the Jernbaneverket, the newly created track operator, with the name BaneTele. The division was made a limited company in 2001. The same year BaneTele bought the remains of the bankrupt company Enitel which was created by numerous Norwegian electricity companies to build a national fibre network along the power grid. Enitel had also bought Telia Norway after the failed merge between Telia and

. Enitel went bankrupt in 2001 and the power grid network was merged with the railway network. In 2002 the ownership of BaneTele was transferred from Jernbaneverket to the government. In 2006 50% of BaneTele was sold to Bredbåndsalliansen, which in turn is owned by 6 Norwegian electricity companies, thereby reinstating some of the ownership that was lost when Enitel went bankrupt. {{Authority control Telecommunications companies of Norway Formerly government-owned companies of Norway Telecommunications companies established in 1996 1996 establishments in Norway Norwegian National Rail Administration Government-owned telecommunications companies