Connex GSM
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Connex GSM is Romania's second-largest mobile phone network operator. It launched in April 1997 as the first GSM network in Romania (although not the first mobile phone network). It covers 95% of the Romanian population, with over 5 million subscribers and 48.41% market share. Connex provides roaming agreements with 238 international operators in 103 countries.
Connex is owned by MobiFon SA, which is in turn owned by Telesystems International Wireless (TIW) and Vodafone. On 15 March 2005 Vodafone reached a deal with TIW to purchase its 79% stake in Connex.
As of March 2005, its shareholders are:
- Vodafone — 99.1%
- George Copos — 0.9%
Connex GSM is in head-to-head competition with Orange for the 10.7 million mobile telephony users in Romania. Connex held the largest number of subscribers until September 2004, when Orange edged ahead.
Other competitors are:
The motto of Connex is Tu faci viitorul (You create the future). A previous and better-known motto was Viitorul sună bine (The future sounds good).
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Brands of Connex
Connex, or rather MobiFon SA, owns numerous brands. They include:
- Xnet - one of the largest Romanian internet service providers
- myX - Romania's first mobile portal
- myBanking - mobile banking service
- myDomain - domain name service
History
- 1998: SMS services introduced
- 1999: Xnet Internet service introduced; High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) technology introduced; mobile phones running on Connex donated to ambulance service of Oradea (first Romanian company to do so)
- 2000: WAP mobile Internet services launched
- 2001: myX, Romania's first mobile portal launched; SMS services such as dating, ringtones and logos are introduced; GPRS service launched
- 2002: GPRS prepaid introduced; first company in Europe to introduce World Wide Number (WWN) facilities; mobile banking introduced in cooperation with Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR).
- 2003: myBanking introduced - a service in collaboration with Raiffeisen Bank, for customers to pay Connex bills and do banking automatically
- 2003: Connex Meeting Call introduced.
- 2005: 3G services based on W-CDMA introduced, giving way to video telephony and broadband internet via mobile phone.
- 2005: In partnership with RIM, Connex launches the first BlackBerry service in Romania.
See also
External links
- Connex GSM web site (http://www.connex.ro)
- Vodafone to Acquire Control of MobiFon in Romania and Oskar in the Czech Republic (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050315/nytu131_2.html)