Proximus, also known as
Belgacom Mobile, is the largest of
BelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
's three mobile
telecommunications operatorA telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
s. It competes with
MobistarMobistar is the second largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications operators. It competes with Proximus, owned by Belgian state owned telco Belgacom, and Base, a subsidiary of Dutch KPN.-History:...
, owned by
France TélécomFrance Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...
, and
BaseBASE is a telephony services and broadband internet brand operated by KPN Group Belgium/KPN in Belgium and Germany.-Belgium:BASE is a brand of KPN Group Belgium....
, a subsidiary of Dutch
KPNKPN is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company, including both 2G and 3G mobile operations...
.
History
Proximus was founded in 1994 as a joint-venture between
BelgacomThe Belgacom Group is the largest telecommunications company in Belgium, headquartered in Brussels. Belgacom Group is primarily state owned, with the Belgian state holding 53.3% + 1 share...
, 75 %, and
AirtouchAirTouch Communications was a U.S.-based wireless telephone service provider, created as a spin-off on Pacific Telesis on April 1, 1994. Its headquarters were in One California in the Financial District, San Francisco, California...
, 25 %, respectively. Airtouch was later merged with
VodafoneVodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
. In 2006, Belgacom bought the remaining Vodafone shares.
Starting January 1994, Proximus took over the operatorship of the old MOB2
analogAn analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
network, as well as the new second generation GSM network, originally only in the GSM 900 range. The obsolete MOB2 network was retired in 1999. When necessary, Proximus can also use GSM 1800 to complement its network.
It was originally a de facto monopoly, but after deregulation
MobistarMobistar is the second largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications operators. It competes with Proximus, owned by Belgian state owned telco Belgacom, and Base, a subsidiary of Dutch KPN.-History:...
, a second GSM 900 operator soon joined the game in 1998, followed by
BASEBASE is a telephony services and broadband internet brand operated by KPN Group Belgium/KPN in Belgium and Germany.-Belgium:BASE is a brand of KPN Group Belgium....
, then known as
KPNKPN is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company, including both 2G and 3G mobile operations...
-
OrangeOrange is the brand used by France Télécom for its mobile network operator and Internet service provider subsidiaries. It is the fifth largest telecom operator in the world, with 210 million customers . The brand was created in 1994 for Hutchison Telecom's UK mobile phone network, which was...
in 1999.
Proximus has just a little over 45 % of the market now considered as saturated.
Company
Proximus NV/SA is a
subsidiaryA subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
of
BelgacomThe Belgacom Group is the largest telecommunications company in Belgium, headquartered in Brussels. Belgacom Group is primarily state owned, with the Belgian state holding 53.3% + 1 share...
NV/SA, which had an IPO in 2004 but remains more than 50 % state owned. A 25 % share was owned by the Vodafone Group until 2006, when Vodafone agreed to sell its stake to Belgacom. In 2004, it had a revenue of € 2,239 million and an
EBITDAEBITDA is an acronym for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. It is a non-GAAP metric that is measured exactly as stated. All interest, tax, depreciation and amortization entries in the income statement are reversed out from the bottom-line net income...
of € 1,135 million.
Technical information
The operator's display logo is
PROXIMUS, the net code is 206 01 and operates under GSM 900/1800 (2G GSM) net and W-CDMA 2100 (3G UTMS) frequencies. Its prepaid service is called
Pay&Go.
Mobile virtual network operator
The Proximus network is used by a number of
mobile virtual network operatorA mobile virtual network operator is a company that provides mobile phone services but does not have its own licensed frequency allocation of radio spectrum, nor does it necessarily have all of the infrastructure required to provide mobile telephone service...
s: TMF Mobile (
MTVMTV Networks Benelux was a regional operation for MTV Networks International in the Benelux region. MTV Networks Benelux is located in Amsterdam with a second office in Lint.....
), Mobisud (Scarlet), RSCA Mobile, PostMobile (bpost)