Bouygues Telecom

Bouygues Telecom is a French mobile phone, Internet service provider and IPTV company, part of the Bouygues group. It is the third oldest mobile network operator in France, after Orange and SFR, and before Free Mobile, and provides 2G GSM, 3G UMTS, 4G LTE and 5G NR services. Its headquarters, designed by Arquitectonica and opened in 2011, is located at the border of Paris and Issy-les-Moulineaux near the River Seine. History Bouygues Telecom was authorised by the French government to build and operate France's third GSM mobile phone network on 4 December 1994, and commercially launched its network on 30 May 1996. To compensate for its initial weaker coverage in comparison to Orange and SFR, Bouygues Telecom developed several innovations: heavy use of the 1800 MHz frequency band, which is more efficient in urban areas; the marketing of the first combo packages in May 1996; the launch of France's first SMS service in 1996, initially only between its subscribers, not billed until 1997; a free call recording function included in all packages, from 15 January 1997; the launch of caller ID at the end of 1997, followed a few months later by its competitors; the launch of the "Millenium" package in November 1999, the first in France to offer unlimited calls during the weekend; the launch of the "Spot" formula in March 2000, which offers several minutes of free talktime in exchange for advertising messages during communication; and the launch of France's first unlimited evening calling plan to all operators in 2006