It was on January 1st 1985 when BT Cellnet (now known as O2) and Vodafone launched their network services in United Kingdom (UK). It was an analogue phones that they introduced. People then could easily tap into phone calls and listen to confidential conversation and fraud became more prevalent in the 80s. Despite of the odd, these two phone network providers battled professionally with almost the same similar service plans or tariff as they call it.
A new global standard of mobile communications was introduced in 1991 known as 2G or Second Generation phones. This allowed better means of communication through mobile phone that include text messaging and improved quality in signal, better clarity in voice calls and enable the use of mobile phone abroad.
In 1993 a company called One2One (now known as T-Mobile) launched its own version of 2G operations. At that time customers across the different networks reached 1.5 million subscribers. Cellnet was then the first company to reach a million subscribers.
A network known as Orange entered to the picture of mobile phones in the UK in 1994 armed with its 2G operations and provided better future for mobile phone industry. Their slogan “The Future is Bright, the future is Orange,” became so popular in the streets and households.
For a while, the government of UK put a stop to introducing more network operators running on 2G frequencies because of worries about its health hazards; until 1997 came when the first “pay as you go” service was launched by all networks charging only 50 pence a minute.
The best thing happened to the mobile market in November 1999 when Virgin Mobile launched its operations and put an end to the rip off. When the year 2000 came, from the 1.5 million subscribers in 1993 it ballooned to 57 million subscribers from different network providers, all were making massive income. In that same year, the UK government allowed one more additional network to run on a different frequency.
This gave way to the operations of 3G or Third Generation that enabled the mobile phones to make video calls, video messaging, internet and downloads. Revenue across all networks reported to have reached 46.6 billion pounds in 2005. The landline telephone subscribers then dropped to a record high from 13 billion to 10 billion. The switched from the traditional phone to mobile began.
On July 4th 2006 Virgin Mobile was purchased by NTL West Group and created what is now known as the Virgin Media, the very first company in the world to offer four services all under one roof - they simply called it quad play: cable television, broadband, landline phone, and mobile phone.
Since the merger, BT also introduced their own version of 3-service package of broadband, phone and TV. Orange also introduced its own broadband with their mobile phone. The market has shifted from mobile phone communications to a multimedia service plans and because of the cross over between services there is not doubt that the future holds exciting time in the sales team of all the networks.
