History of Vodafone

There are about five mainstream mobile providers in the UK and Vodafone are one of those companies. First heard of in 1982 when the Racal Electronics Group set up the Racal Telecomms Division and named their new mobile phone network ‘Vodafone’, the company have gone from strength to strength.

The name was created to connote the delivery of both voice and data services across the medium of mobile telephones. The first phone call was made on the 1^st of January 1985 from St Katherine’s Dock in London to Newbury over the first analogue network to be launched in the UK. The following decade (the 90s) saw Vodafone – acknowledged as the biggest mobile phone network in the world in 1987 – launch the first digital mobile phone network the UK, known as GSM. In 1993 they opened their first high street store and 1994 the company Vodata; the first company to offer data and text messaging communication services over the digital network.

In-keeping with their history of leading the way with innovative ideas they became the first company to offer a pay monthly package contract on their analogue service. This is obviously something that has taken off massively in the digital phone market these days.

Next came the 2000s. Having connected their five millionth customer in January 1999, Vodafone obtained the biggest 3G network in the UK, opened the WAP gateway and launched the Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem within the first year! For something that is standard in today’s mobile phone market, the year 2000 seems a long time ago for the first call to have been made over the 3G network, but nonetheless that is the case. GPRS was launched offering the UK their first permanently connected service. Incorporated with this was the launch of instant messaging across their network.

As the networks developed and became ever more accessible to a variety of ages Vodafone launched their Content Control service to prevent younger customers from accessing more adult content.

In 2007 Vodafone embodied their commitment to high quality customer service by building their state-of-the-art customer services centre in Stoke on Trent. Having connected 10 million customers to their 3G network the need for this was becoming more and more obvious.

Over the years there have been dozens of smaller software updates that have enhanced Vodafone’s status within the market. For more details on these, have a read of their history on the Vodafone website.

For more information on any of the products and services offered by Vodafone, contact them directly on the Vodafone Customer Service Number and speak with a member of their team. For all information pertaining to other companies, visit our Squidoo page by clicking on the following link http://www.squidoo.com/customer-services-contact.