Mobistar N.V./S.A.

Type	Public (Euronext: MOBB)
Founded	1996
Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Key people	Benoît Scheen (CEO), Jan Steyaert (Chairman of the board)
Industry	Telecommunications
Services	Mobile and fixed-line telephony
Revenue	€1.567 billion (2008)[1]
Operating income	▲ €412 million (2008)[1]
Profit	▲ €276 million (2008)[1]
Employees	1,460 (2008)[1]
Website	www.mobistar.be

Mobistar (Euronext: MOBB) 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.

[edit] History

It was founded in 1996 as a joint-venture between Telinfo and France Télécom, building a GSM 900 network and then founding a complementary DCS 1800 network.

Initially Mobistar added to its network coverage by signing contracts with providers such as Motorola & Talkline, Cellway, a subsidiary of Martin Dawes Telecommunications and Debitel Belgium, the latter two which it would take over respectively in 1997 and 2000.

Mobistar claims to have been the first GPRS operator in Belgium.

In May 2007 Mobistar bought 90% of the shares of VOXmobile, a mobile phone company of Luxembourg.

It has a market share of about 32%.

[edit] Company

Mobistar is majority-owned by the France Télécom holding company Atlas Services Belgium (ASB), which holds a 52.91% stake. Mobistar is thus a subsidiary of France Télécom's mobile division Orange. It is a member of the FreeMove alliance.

[edit] Mobile virtual network operator

The Mobistar network is used by a number of mobile virtual network operators including Simply (Mobistar), Mobistar SOS (Mobistar), Mobile Plus (Delhaize), and Telenet Mobile (Telenet).

[edit] Technical information

The operator's display logo is mobistar, the net code is 206 10 and operates under GSM 900/1800 (2G GSM) net and W-CDMA 2100 (3G UTMS) frequencies. Its prepaid service is called Tempo.

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Annual Report 2008". Mobistar. http://corporate.mobistar.be/en/pdf/annual_report_2008b.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-25. 

[edit] External links

• Official site

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