Yettel Hungary (formerly ''Telenor'', ''Pannon'' and ''Pannon GSM'') is the second largest mobile phone operator in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. Yettel Hungary Ltd. was founded as ''Pannon GSM Telecommunications Ltd.'' in 1994.

History

In November, 1993 Pannon GSM Telecommunications Ltd. signed a

concession agreement A concession or concession agreement is a grant of rights, land, property, or facility by a government, local authority, corporation, individual or other legal entity. Public services such as water supply may be operated as a concession. In the ...

and in March of the following year started to operate on the 900

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

frequency. In 1999 the company won a tender for the 1800 MHz frequency. In November, 2000 it started to operate on the 1800 MHz frequency in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, and in March 2001, the whole country. The network covers 99% of

. The company has 13 switching centres, more than 1500 base stations and employs 1,060 people. The company's revenue in 2001 was HUF 132.8 billion and profits before taxes were HUF 18.7 billion. On January 31, 2003 the company had 2,627,000 subscribers representing 40% of the Hungarian mobile market, which was then shared by 3 companies. Telenor Logo

On February 14, 2006 the company changed its main brand to Pannon and refreshed its visual image, in line with the new corporate identity of its parent,

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 worldwi ...

. On May 18, 2010 the company changed its name to Telenor. In 2009, the fairness of Pannon's consumer contract terms was challenged in the Hungarian courts. A reference was made to the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially the Court of Justice (), is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting ...

for a

preliminary ruling A preliminary ruling is a decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the interpretation of European Union law that is given in response to a request (a preliminary reference) from a court or a tribunal of a member state. A preliminary ru ...

concerning the role of

EU member states The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated population of over 449million as of 2024. The EU is often de ...

' national courts in dealing with such challenges, which reinforced the ruling that the courts must examine potentially

unfair terms A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more Party (law), parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, Service (economics), services, money, or pr ...

and not apply them if they were found to be unfair, except where the consumer is opposed to that non-application. Whether the terms were actually unfair was referred back to the Hungarian court for resolution.European Court of Justice
Case C-243/08: Pannon GSM Zrt. v Erzsébet Sustikné Győrfi
paragraph 35, delivered 4 June 2009, accessed 24 May 2024 In January 2018, the company's management confirmed media reports that there is interest in sale of Telenor's business in southeastern Europe, including Telenor Hungary. In March 2018, Telenor sold its business in southeastern Europe (

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, Hungary,

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and

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

) to the investment fund PPF, for a sum of 2.8 billion euros. In January 2022, Telenor announced they would change their name to Yettel on March 1, 2022.

Network information

The IMSI - Network Code of Yettel is 216-1 and MSISDN Network Codes are 20 (international: +36 20). The display name of Yettel: Yettel HU.

References

External links

Yettel HungaryYettel – PPF Group
{{Hungarian mobile phone companies 1994 establishments in Hungary Telecommunications companies of Hungary Telecommunications companies established in 1994 2003 mergers and acquisitions 2018 mergers and acquisitions PPF Group