Blu S.p.A. was an Italian

telecommunications company A telecommunications company is a kind of electronic communications service provider, more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many t ...

operating in the

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 ...

sector. It was active between 1999 and 2002.

History

The

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

was founded in 1999, through a partnership between Società Autostrade (through Sitec, 32%),

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

(20%), Benetton (through the financial Edizione Holding, 9%),

Mediaset Mediaset S.p.A. is an Italian mass media and television production and distribution company that is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country. The company is controlled by the holding company MFE – MediaForEurope (the original ...

(9%), Distacom (9%), BNL (7%),

Italgas Italgas S.p.A. is an Italian company specialised in the distribution of natural gas. It is listed on the Borsa Italiana and included in the FTSE MIB index. History The company was founded in Turin in 1837 under the name ''Compagnia di Illumi ...

(7%),

Caltagirone Caltagirone (; or ; ) is an inland city and municipality () in the Metropolitan City of Catania, on the island (and region) of Sicily, Southern Italy, about southwest of Catania. It is the fifth most populous municipality of the Metropolita ...

(7%) and Palatinus. Its slogan was ''"Il futuro che non c'era"'' (''"The future that was not there"''). Its

service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a ...

began on May 15, 2000, using license number 61, issued shortly after the launch by the Italian Ministry of Communications. The services were valid for

communications Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

through the

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

system on the 1800 MHz

frequency band Spectral bands are regions of a given spectrum, having a specific range of wavelengths or frequencies. Most often, it refers to electromagnetic bands, regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. More generally, spectral bands may also be means in ...

; the signal with its own

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

was initially irradiated only in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

while, in the rest of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, the transmission occurred within the GSM network of other

operators Operator may refer to: Mathematics * A symbol indicating a mathematical operation * Logical operator or logical connective in mathematical logic * Operator (mathematics), mapping that acts on elements of a space to produce elements of another ...

thanks to national

roaming Roaming is a wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or oth ...

agreements. With 430,000 users in September 2000, the company exceeded its initial target of 350,000 customers by the end of the year. Also,the disagreement between British Telecom and the other

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...

s with regard to distributing shares put the company's participation in the auction for the awarding of

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...

licenses, which were initially confirmed, in question. They were withdrawn on October 23. The case involved judicial trials that ended in January 2001 when the Lazio Regional Administrative Court annulled the government confiscation of the surety of 4 trillion lire. In December 2000, the company continued its development, launching a

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 wit ...

service which exceeded one million users in March 2001. In August of the same year, the company acquired the license for

fixed telephony A landline is a physical telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber from the subscriber's premises to the network, allowing multiple phones to operate simultaneously on the same phone number. It is also referred to as plain old ...

. Despite the continued expansion, with 1,600,000 customers at the end of 2001 and a market share of new activations of 13%, the first defections began among the company's partners. Edition renounced its shares in September 2001 after entry into the

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 ...

group, and Mediaset followed in when it sold its shares in December 2001 to British Telecom. The company entered a phase of progressive demobilization. On August 6, 2002, the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

gave the go-ahead to the company break-up, opting for the sale of the customer base (4% of the Italian market) and

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

Wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

, its

systems to TIM, Wind and Vodafone Omnitel, the

share capital A corporation's share capital, commonly referred to as capital stock in the United States, is the portion of a corporation's equity that has been derived by the issue of shares in the corporation to a shareholder, usually for cash. ''Share ...

at TIM and other branches of the company at H3G. Blu transferred its assets to other companies on October 8, 2002.

References

External links

* {{Italian mobile phone companies Mobile phone companies of Italy Italian companies established in 1999 Italian companies disestablished in 2002