Our history
For over 150 years, telecommunications has played a vital part in the development of modern Norwegian society. As the incumbent provider, Telenor has been the driving force in the development of a highly sophisticated home market and is now one of the largest mobile operators worldwide.
The introduction of the telephone
The years of 1855 to 1920 was a pioneering period in the history of Norwegian telecommunications. During two generations, the Norwegian society experienced the introduction of three new means of communications: the telegraph in the years of 1850, the telephone around 1880 and wireless telegraphy radiotelegraphy at the turn of the century. The spread and use of telecommunication was modest compared to later periods, but as entirely new features they received a fair amount of attention.
Pioneer in mobile communications
Telenor is a pioneer in mobile communications. Manual mobile telephony services were introduced in Norway in 1966, as a forerunner to the automatic NMT system, which appeared in 1981. Its digital successor, GSM, was introduced in 1993, and third generation mobile network, UMTS, was launched for commercial use in 2004.
Norwegian telecom becomes a public corporation
In 1994, Norwegian Telecom was established as a public corporation. One year later, it changed its name to Telenor. In December 2000, Telenor was partly privatised and listed on the stock exchange.
and expands internationally
Telenor has undergone momentous change as a group from being a strong, national operator with significant international holdings to be coming an international, world-class provider of mobile communications services.
Telenor now has mobile operations in 12 markets around the world, many of which are seeing high growth. In each of these markets we will drive towards greater competitiveness, building on the many strengths we have forged during our more than 150 years of history and on our international experience.
View the animated chronological presentation of Telenor's history.