Vodafone’s story starts in the
At the time, the UK was focused on tech innovation and mobile networks were vital to this.
In 1982, Vodafone’s parent company, Racal Electronics, was awarded one of the UK’s first mobile telephone licences.
And so, Vodafone was born - 22nd March 1984.
But the new network needed its own name and brand identity.
The race was on to build a network from scratch but already the company was attracting customers. With 23-year-old Ivan Donn signing up the very first Vodafone customer that year.
By 1985, the Vodafone UK network had launched and Britain’s first-ever mobile phone call was made.
At midnight, on 1st January 1985, Michael Harrison, the son of former Vodafone Chairman Sir Ernest Harrison, called his father from one of the first mobile devices
– a Transportable Vodafone VT1, which weighed 5kg and had around 30 minutes of talk time.
In 1992, Vodafone made history again as the world's first SMS text message was sent by software engineer Neil Papworth to Vodafone Director Richard Jarvis on Christmas Eve.
Received on an Oribitel TBU 901, it simply said
"MERRY CHRISTMAS"
However, the way we text has changed.
30 years on and it’s estimated that 8.4 trillion text messages were sent worldwide last year.
The arrival of 3G in the millennium made it possible to video call, browse the web and email via mobile phones.
One of the first 3G Vodafone services featured data cards that allowed business customers to access office apps on the go – an early step in remote working.
4G’s huge leaps in speed, latency and capacity, saw data usage increase and in 2015, Vodafone launched home broadband, followed by a TV offering.
By this point, Vodafone was international and moving beyond mobile.
Around the same time there was rapid growth in the Cloud, hosted software and application services, and machine-to-machine solutions – where any device can connect to the internet and share information.
Today, we have Europe’s largest 5G network, live in 332 cities across the continent.
Attracting over 5m users to date, the online resource offers information on how to operate in a digital world.
Now, with more than 320m mobile customers, 28m fixed broadband customers, and 21m TV customers, Vodafone is the largest pan-European and African telecoms company.
But it’s still an innovator at heart, continually looking to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
As we move forward into the next era of Vodafone, the future of connectivity will continue to revolutionise the way we live and work.