Blu (Italian company)

The company was founded on 19 April 1999 thanks to a partnership between Società Autostrade (through Sitec, 32%), British Telecom (20%), Benetton (through the financial Edizione Holding,[1] 9%), Mediaset (9%) , Distacom (9%), BNL (7%), Italgas (7%), Caltagirone (7%) and Palatinus.[2][3][4][5] The slogan used was "Il futuro che non c'era" ("The future that was not there").

The services were activated on May 15, 2000,[4] using the license number 61 issued shortly after the birth by the Italian Ministry of Communications, valid for communications through the GSM system on the 1800 MHz frequency band: the signal with its own network was initially irradiated only in Milan while, in the rest of Italy, the transmission occurred with the GSM network of other operators thanks to national roaming agreements.[6]

With 430,000 users in September 2000,[7] the company exceeded its initial target of reaching 350,000 customers by the end of the year:[8] nevertheless, the lack of agreement between British Telecom and the other shareholders regarding the distribution of shares[8] put the company's participation in the auction for the awarding of UMTS licenses, initially confirmed,[9] and then withdrawn on 23 October.[10] The case involved judicial trials that ended in January 2001, when the Lazio Regional Administrative Court annulled the government confiscation of the surety of 4000 billion lire.[11][12]

In the meantime, the company continued its development launching the GPRS service[13] in December 2000, exceeding one million users in March 2001[14] and acquiring, in August of the same year, the license for fixed telephony. Despite the continued expansion (with 1,600,000 customers at the end of 2001 with a market share of new activations of 13%),[15] the first defections began among the company's partners, with Edition that in September 2001 renounced its shares after the entry into the Telecom Italia group and Mediaset which in December 2001 sold the shares in its possession to British Telecom.[2][3]

The telephone operator thus entered a phase of progressive demobilization: on 6 August 2002 the board of directors gave the go-ahead to the company break-up, opting for the sale of the customer base (4% of the Italian market) and brand to Wind,[16] mobile telephone systems at TIM,[17] Wind[16] and Vodafone Omnitel, the share capital at TIM and other branches of the company at H3G.[17] Blu turned off its signal on 8 October 2002, finally disappearing from the communications world.[18]