About our History
More than 155 years of accumulated experience within telecommunications, coupled with a pioneering spirit and a quest for knowledge and development – are what have brought Telenor to where it is today. Telenor Group has mobile operations in 11 markets around the world and in additionally 19 markets through our 31,67 per cent ownership in VimpelCom Ltd. Go ahead and explore our history – in text, film and pictures.
View the Telenor History
Duration: 5:01
1965
In 1965 Norway receives its first telephone satellite connection to the USA.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
The front page of Telegrafverket's (Norwegian Telecom) company newspaper, June 1965.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- - Satellite telephone connection between Norway and USA opens.
1960
Television was officially launched by King Olav V of Norway in 1960.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
In the 1960s, television brought the whole world into people's sitting rooms.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
Queues outside telephone boxes were a familiar sight in the 1960s. The telephone box at Skansen (Akershus) in Oslo.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
The Ericofon (Kobra) was produced for the first time in 1953 by L. M. Ericsson. The telephone received several international design awards.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- Norwegian Television (NRK TV) opens for television broadcasts.
1946
The number of Telex subscribers increased from 55 in 1947 to 3,531 in 1970. In many ways this service replaced the telegram in swiftly transmitting written communciations. The picture shows the Berge manual telephone exchange with a Telex machine in the foreground (1954).
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- Telex services are introduced in the Norwegian market.
1940
A German soldier standing guard outside the Telegraph headquarters in Oslo, April 1940 - shortly after the German invasion of Norway on April 9, 1940. The occupying forces also took over the national radio (NRK) and broadcasted their invation of Norway and requested the 'cooperation' of the king, parliament and the Norwegian people.
Photo: The Norwegian Labour Movement Archive
- World War II: 9 April 1940, Nazi Germany occupies Norway. Vidkun Quisling gives a speech on behalf of the occupying forces, which is transmitted to the Norwegian people over national radio.
1933
The radio was a gathering point for many families. Norway is home to the world's longest surviving radio programme, Saturday Children's hour (1924-).
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) is established.
1932
Norway's first red telephone box was placed at the America Line quay, by the Akershus Fortress in Oslo in 1933.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
The speaking clock service, "Miss Clock", featuring the voice of actress, Randi Brænnes, was introduced in 1932. The speaking clock was dialled 10,000 times a day in Bergen alone.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- The first red telephone kiosks appear in Norway.
- The 'speaking' clock, known to all as ‘Miss Clock’, is introduced as a new and popular telephone service.
1928
An American businessman talking into a candlestick phone in the1920s.
Photo: H. Armstrong Roberts / Scanpix/ Corbis
- The telephone connection between Norway and USA opens.
1925
The radio was a status symbol and was given pride of place in the sitting room (1925).
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- The first radio broadcast is transmitted in Norway.
1920
One of the first automatic telephone exchanges in Norway.
Photo: Cato Normann, Norwegian Telecom Museum
The world's first dial telephone was produced by Siemens & Halske in 1911.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- As the first city in Scandinavia, the Norwegian city of Skien, opens an automatic telephone exchange.
1911
A flag raising ceremony marks the opening of Spitsbergen radio on Svalbard in 1911.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- Wireless telegraph connection opens between Norway and Svalbard.
1906
The telegraph became extremely important to the Lofoten fishery and led to a 25 per cent increase in the export of fish. The extra catch was called "telegraph herring." The photograph was taken in 1936.
Photo: Wilse / Norsk Folkemuseum (The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History)
The Telegraph Station at Røst in Lofoten, Norway
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- Telecommunication using radio waves officially opens between the two fishing communities, the island of Røst and the mainland, Sørvågen, in Lofoten.
1901
Christiania Telephone Company, Central Station, Norway 1901. Unmarried daughters of the capital's wealthier families worked as telephone operators.
Photo: Hilfling-Rasmussen, Christiania / Norwegian Telecom Museum
Telephone repair man Bredesen, photographed in 1903.
Photo: Norwegian Telecom Museum
- The Norwegian Telegraph Administration takes over the telephone exchange in Kristiania (later Oslo).