Telefónica, S.A. is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadband, and subscription television, operating in Europe and the Americas.
Teléfonos de México, S.A.B. de C.V., known as Telmex is a Mexican telecommunications company headquartered in Mexico City that provides telecommunications products and services in Mexico. In 2014, Telmex was the dominant fixed-line phone carrier in Mexico. In addition to traditional fixed-line telephone service, Telmex offers Internet access through their Infinitum brand of Wi-Fi networks, data, hosted services and IT services. Telmex owns 90 percent of the telephone lines in Mexico City and 80 percent of the lines in the country. Telmex is a wholly owned subsidiary of América Móvil.
Virgin Mobile is a wireless communications brand used by seven independent brand-licensees worldwide. Virgin Mobile branded wireless communications services are available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Poland and Mexico. Virgin Mobile branded services used to be offered in Australia, France, Singapore, India, Qatar, South Africa and the United States.
Liberty Global plc is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Plc, Liberty Global B.V. and Liberty Global, Inc., with the first of these being publicly traded. It was formed in 2005 by the merger of the international arm of Liberty Media and UnitedGlobalCom (UGC).
Movistar is a major telecommunications provider owned by Telefónica, operating in Spain and Hispanic American countries. It is the largest provider of landline, broadband, mobile services, and pay television (Movistar+) in Spain. Movistar is the second-largest wireless carrier in Mexico, with 25.8 million subscribers as of January 2020.
Ooredoo QSC is a Qatari multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Doha. Ooredoo provides mobile, wireless, wire line, and content services with market share in domestic and international telecommunication markets, and in business and residential markets.
Claro Company, known as Claro Mexico or simply Claro, is a Mexican company part of América Móvil, a Mexican telecom group. Claro serves clients in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. The company's name means "bright," "clear," and also "of course," in both Portuguese and Spanish.
América Móvil is a Mexican telecommunications corporation headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the 7th largest mobile network operator in the world in terms of equity subscribers, as well as one of the largest corporations in the world. América Móvil is a Forbes Global 2000 company. As of Q1, 2019, América Móvil had 277.4 million wireless subscribers, and 84.3 million fixed revenue generating units.
Millicom International Cellular SA is a Luxembourgish fixed line and mobile telecommunications services provider operating in Latin America operating under the Tigo brand. Its main shareholder is Xavier Niel, a French billionaire who owns 25.02% of the company.
Vodafone Egypt is the largest mobile network operator in Egypt in terms of active subscribers. It was launched in 1998 under its former name Click GSM. It covers various voice and data exchange services, as well as 4G, 3G, ADSL and broadband Internet services.
COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS S.A. known as just Cosmote is the largest mobile network operator in Greece. The company is headquartered in Athens and is a fully owned subsidiary of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE), the incumbent telecommunications provider in Greece. COSMOTE has developed business operations in two other Southeast Europe countries through subsidiaries: Telekom Albania and Telekom Romania, addressing an extended market of 45 million people. In all three countries COSMOTE counts approximately 35.6 million customers.
The Internet in Chile has its roots in experimental tests conducted in 1986 between the Universidad de Chile and the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, the two main public universities in the country. Its commercialization began in the mid-1990s, and it experienced widespread adoption in the second half of the 2000s. Before this, Chile had previously attempted the Cybersyn project in 1971, which aimed to establish an almost real-time economic information transfer system with the government, but it did not succeed.
Tuenti Technologies, S.L.U is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that operates with the Tuenti brand owned by Telefónica. It is a Spain-based tech company that focuses on providing a cloud-based services through its own application and its website to their customers.
Disney Channel is a Latin American pay television network broadcasting throughout Hispanic America and Brazil. It was officially launched on July 27, 2000 as a premium-label channel in Hispanic America, and also in Brazil back on April 5, 2001, and became a basic pay TV network in 2004.
Telefonica UK Limited, trading as O2 UK, is a British telecommunications services provider, headquartered in Slough, England which operates under the O2 brand. It is owned by VMED O2 UK Limited, a 50:50 joint venture between Telefónica and Liberty Global. O2 is the UK's largest mobile network operator, with 23.8 million subscribers as of May 2023.
T-Mobile Polska S.A. is a Polish mobile phone network operator. The company was formerly named Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa and operated under the name Era, until being rebranded as T-Mobile on 5 June 2011. As in other European countries, the company operates a GSM network. Following a decade-long ownership dispute with the French Vivendi corporation, the company has been wholly owned by the German telecommunications provider Deutsche Telekom since 2010.
3G mobile telephony was relatively slow to be adopted globally. In some instances, 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G so mobile operators must build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies, especially so to achieve high data transmission rates. Other delays were due to the expenses of upgrading transmission hardware, especially for UMTS, whose deployment required the replacement of most broadcast towers. Due to these issues and difficulties with deployment, many carriers delayed acquisition of these updated capabilities.
