Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
, is a French multinational
telecommunications corporation. It has 256 million customers worldwide and employs
95,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere.[3] In 2015, the group had revenue of
40 billion.[4] The company's head office is located in the 15th arrondissement of
Paris. The current CEO is Stphane Richard. The company is a component of the Euro
Stoxx 50 stock market index.[5]
Orange has been the company's main brand for mobile, landline, internet and IPTV
services since 2006. It originated in 1994 when Hutchison Whampoa acquired a
controlling stake in Microtel Communications during the early 1990s and rebranded
it as "Orange". It became a subsidiary of Mannesmann in 1999 and was acquired by
France Tlcom in 2000. The company was rebranded as Orange in July 2013.[6]
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Nationalised service (1970s1980s)
1.2 Creation of France Tlcom (19881997)
1.3 'Roaring Nineties' (19972000)
1.4 Acquisition of Orange and privatization
1.5 NeXT scheme and rebranding to Orange (2006present)
2 Shareholders
3 Operations
3.1 Mobile
3.2 Landline and Internet
3.3 Broadcasting
3.4 Music
4 Subsidiaries, joint ventures and holdings
4.1 Orange Business Services
4.2 BT Group
4.3 Globecast
4.4 Viaccess Orca
4.5 Orange Labs
4.6 Dailymotion
4.7 Deezer
4.8 Studio 37
4.9 Cityvox
4.10 Cloudwatt
5 Controversy
5.1 Staff suicides
5.2 Access to some sites limited
5.3 Accusations of false advertising in France
5.4 Corruption in Tunisia
5.5 Anticompetitive practices in French overseas departments
5.6 SMS and MMS propagation of 1 January 2011 in France
5.7 Controversies in UK regarding the quality of service
5.8 Accusations of antisemitism and calls for boycott
6 Governance
6.1 Overview of governance
6.2 Chairmen
6.3 Chief executive officers
6.4 Board of directors
6.5 Executive committee
6.6 Head office
7 Orange Foundation
8 Sponsorship
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
History[edit]
Nationalised service (1970s1980s)[edit]
In 1792, under the French Revolution, the first communication network was developed
to enable the rapid transmission of information in a warring and unsafe country.
That was the optical telegraphy network of Claude Chappe.
In 1878, after the invention of the electrical telegraph and then the invention of
the telephone, the French State created a Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.
Telephone Services were added to the ministry when they were nationalised in 1889.
However, it was not until 1923 that the second 'T' (for 'telephones') appeared and
the department of P&T became PTT.
In 1941, a General Direction of Telecommunications was created within this
ministry. Then, in 1944, the National Centre of Telecommunications Studies (CNET)
was created to develop the telecommunications industry in France.
In the 1970s, France tried extra hard to make up its delay on other countries with
the programme "delta LP" (increasing the main lines). It was at the time when the
majority of the local loop was built; that is all the cables linking the users to
the operator. Moreover, with the help of French manufacturers, digital switching,
the Minitel and the GSM standard were invented by engineers and CNET researchers.
Creation of France Tlcom (19881997)[edit]
Until 1988, France Tlcom was known as the direction gnrale des
Tlcommunications, a division of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. It
became autonomous in 1990. This was in response to a European directive, aimed at
making competition mandatory in public services from 1 January 1998. The 2 July
1990 Bill changed France Tlcom into an operator of public law, with Marcel Roulet
the first Chairman. Since then, the company has had a separate body corporate from
the State and acquired financial autonomy. It was privatised by Lionel Jospin's
Plural Left government starting on 1 January 1998. The French government, both
directly and through its holding company ERAP, continues to hold a stake of almost
27% in the company. In addition, the government Conseil of Ministers names the CEO.
[7] In 1982 Telecom introduced Minitel online ordering for its customers. In
September 1995, Michel Bon was appointed to run France Tlcom Group.
'Roaring Nineties' (19972000)[edit]
In 1997, the capital of the new public company was successfully floated whereas the
dot-com bubble phenomenon made the stock exchanges bullish. A second share offering
occurred in 1998. France Tlcom got behind in the internationalization launched by
its international competitors such as Vodafone, thus, it started looking for
targets at the highest speculation rate of the dot-com bubble. Moreover, its
alliance with Deutsche Telekom based on a reciprocal capital contribution of 2%
broke off when Deutsche Telekom announced that they were planning to do business
with Telecom Italia without letting the French know even if this project ended up
failing.
Acquisition of Orange and privatization[edit]
See also: Orange (UK) History