History
The first appearance in the Italian mobile telephony market dates back to 1990 with the launch of the TACS network by the Telecom Italia Mobile Radio Services division.
The need for a dedicated image arose a few years later, when Telecom Italia decided to position itself on the mobile market with a new identity. In May 1995, with a partial demerger from the parent company, TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) was born, [1] [5] [6] [7] whose capital was 63.01% controlled by STET, which in 1997 will be incorporated into Telecom Italia.
On 14 July of the same year, Telecom Italia Mobile S.p.A., subsidiary of Telecom Italia S.p.A., is registered with the Court of Turin. [8] Three days later, on 17 July, the company was listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. [9]
On 7 October, after the experimentation period at the CSELT, TIM launched the first rechargeable prepaid card for Italy, the TIM Card, [10] becoming the first telephone company in the world to introduce this charging system. Towards the end of 1996 TIM was the first world operator to launch a tariff plan based on a prepaid card on the GSM network, which in a short time generated rapid growth in mobile telephony.
SMS messaging was also introduced in 1996. [11]
In February 1997, TIM received the GSM World Award for marketing in Cannes, an important acknowledgment from the association that brings together GSM network operators from all over the world, thanks to the success of the prepaid card (over 800,000 customers in less than four months since the start of marketing). [12]
In 1999, an experimentation plan of UMTS was launched with Ericsson. This 3G mobile radio system would have made it possible to access the Internet at higher speeds, transmit data and access multimedia services. [11]
In 2002, TIM was the first mobile telecommunications company in Europe to launch MMS services. [13] [14] Between 2002 and 2004, it launched some value-added services: SMS and MMS content, Internet browsing using WAP technology, games and Java applications.
In 2003, the world's first mobile television service was launched, exploiting the video playback capabilities appearing on mobile terminals in that period and, again in 2003, it stipulated an international roaming agreement, similar to that of Vodafone, with operators world's leading mobile (T-Mobile, Orange and TeliaSonera). This alliance will be called FreeMove. [15]
In 2004, as part of the TIM Turbo project, the EDGE and UMTS services were created for high-speed data transmission.
In 2005, the first Italian mobile community, TIM Tribù, was formed. [16]
In December 2011, the company developed TIM Cloud, a cloud storage service dedicated to its customers where they can save digital files. [17]
In November 2012, TIM launched its LTE network. [18]
The TIM Wallet service was born in February 2013, to be able to make payments via smartphone thanks to NFC technology. [19]
In 2014, multimedia entertainment services were launched through the TIMgames, TIMmusic, TIMreading and TIMvision applications. [20]
The rebranding process began in 2014, which in 2014 led TIM to be the single brand of Telecom Italia for mobile telephony, fixed-line telephony and Internet services.
In the first months of 2015, the rebranding operations continue. From the month of July, the TIM brand is used for the entire fixed, mobile and Internet telephony offer of the Telecom Italia company and the unified TIM site becomes operational, which includes offers and assistance for fixed telephony and mobile telephony. [21]
TIM was the Official Global Partner of Expo 2015. Thanks to the company's contribution, it was possible to create the first Italian digital smart city, directly in the exhibition area. TIM has in fact equipped the entire area with technological solutions, fixed network, mobile and Internet infrastructures and coverage of the exhibition site with fixed and mobile ultra-broadband connections and Wi-Fi connections based on Cisco technology. [22]
