T-Mobile UK

T-Mobile UK
Company typeBrand
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded7 September 1993; 31 years ago (1993-09-07) (as Mercury One2One)
Defunct11 May 2010; 14 years ago (2010-05-11) (as a company)
February 2015; 9 years ago (2015-02) (as a brand)
FateMerged with Orange UK
SuccessorEE
Area served
United Kingdom
ProductsMobile telecommunications products and services
Websitet-mobile.co.uk

T-Mobile UK was a mobile network operator in the UK. First launched as Mercury One2One (stylised one2one) on 7 September 1993,[1] the network was originally operated by Mercury Communications. one2one was purchased by Deutsche Telekom in 1999, who rebranded it with their global T-Mobile brand name in 2002.[2]

In 1999, one2one became the world's first network to provide wireless network infrastructure to a mobile virtual network operator when Virgin Mobile was launched as a joint venture between one2one and Virgin Group.[3]

In 2010, it merged with Orange UK to form a joint venture, Everything Everywhere, which continued to operate the T-Mobile and Orange brands until March 2015 and allowed T-Mobile customers to utilise Orange's 2G signal and vice versa.

In 2012, Everything Everywhere launched their new network branding as EE. T-Mobile sims remain fully supported by EE, who are ultimately owned by BT since they acquired the company in January 2016 for £12.5 billion.[4][5][6]

  1. ^ "Mercury one2one". engagingwithcommunications.com.
  2. ^ "One 2 One to rebrand as T-Mobile". campaignlive.co.uk.
  3. ^ at 15:26, Linda Harrison 11 Nov 1999. "Virgin shakes up mobile market with One2One deal". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ "EE is Now Part of BT | Business Help | EE Business". business.ee.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  5. ^ Bicheno, Scott (2016-01-29). "BT officially completes EE acquisition". Telecoms.com. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  6. ^ "BT's £12.5bn EE takeover gets green light". The Guardian. 2016-01-15. Retrieved 2021-06-06.