Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia, received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb "to stream" refers to the process of obtaining media in this manner. A client end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio content before the entire file has been transmitted. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming or inherently non-streaming. For example, in the 1930s, elevator music was among the earliest popular music available as streaming media; the term "streaming media" can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, real-time text, which are all considered "streaming text". Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live television broadcasts content over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content.
Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it is. There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. If the user does not have enough bandwidth in their Internet connection, they may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content; some users may not be able to stream certain content due to not having compatible computer or software systems. Some popular streaming services include the video sharing website YouTube and Mixer, which live stream the playing of video games. Netflix and Amazon Video stream movies and TV shows, Spotify, Apple Music and TIDAL stream music. In the early 1920s, George O. Squier was granted patents for a system for the transmission and distribution of signals over electrical lines, the technical basis for what became Muzak, a technology streaming continuous music to commercial customers without the use of radio. Attempts to display media on computers date back to the earliest days of computing in the mid-20th century.
However, little progress was made for several decades due to the high cost and limited capabilities of computer hardware. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, consumer-grade personal computers became powerful enough to display various media; the primary technical issues related to streaming were having enough CPU power bus bandwidth to support the required data rates, creating low-latency interrupt paths in the operating system to prevent buffer underrun, enabling skip-free streaming of the content. However, computer networks were still limited in the mid-1990s, audio and video media were delivered over non-streaming channels, such as by downloading a digital file from a remote server and saving it to a local drive on the end user's computer or storing it as a digital file and playing it back from CD-ROMs. In 1991 the first commercial Ethernet Switch was introduced, which enabled more powerful computer networks leading to the first streaming video solutions used by schools and corporations such as expanding Bloomberg Television worldwide.
In the mid 1990s the World Wide Web was established, but streaming audio would not be practical until years later. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, users had increased access to computer networks the Internet. During the early 2000s, users had access to increased network bandwidth in the "last mile"; these technological improvements facilitated the streaming of audio and video content to computer users in their homes and workplaces. There was an increasing use of standard protocols and formats, such as TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML as the Internet became commercialized, which led to an infusion of investment into the sector; the band Severe Tire Damage was the first group to perform live on the Internet. On June 24, 1993, the band was playing a gig at Xerox PARC while elsewhere in the building, scientists were discussing new technology for broadcasting on the Internet using multicasting; as proof of PARC's technology, the band's performance was broadcast and could be seen live in Australia and elsewhere.
In a March 2017 interview, band member Russ Haines stated that the band had used "half of the total bandwidth of the internet" to stream the performance, a 152-by-76 pixel video, updated eight to twelve times per second, with audio quality, "at best, a bad telephone connection". Microsoft Research developed a Microsoft TV application, compiled under MS Windows Studio Suite and tested in conjunction with Connectix QuickCam. RealNetworks was a pioneer in the streaming media markets, when it broadcast a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners over the Internet in 1995; the first symphonic concert on the Internet took place at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington on November 10, 1995. The concert was a collaboration between The Seattle Symphony and various guest musicians such as Slash, Matt Cameron, Barrett Martin; when Word Magazine launched in 1995, they featured the first-ever streaming soundtracks on the Internet. Metro
Free (ISP)
Free is a French telecommunications company, subsidiary of Iliad that provides voice, video and Internet telecommunications to consumers in France. Its head office is in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Free provides ISP services in the 30 OECD countries, it was the first company to offer a "triple play" service in France through its self-produced singular Freebox set-top box, claiming to have invented the box marketing concept in France in reference to all the other French ISPs who thereafter released "triple play" modems named to include the anglicism box as a suffix. These boxes provide comprehensive telecommunication services such as high-speed internet and digital television packages, leading Free to become the world's number one IPTV provider offering systematically IPTV to subscribers and optimising it to be available on most landlines. Developing its own 3G and 4G networks, Free Mobile was launched in 2012 and became the 4th mobile network operator in France. Free was the third ISP in France to offer Internet access without a subscription or a surcharged phone number, on 26 April 1999.
Unlike its predecessors in the niche of access without subscription, Free's offer was not restricted in time or number of subscribers. In 2002, Free was the first ISP to provide a V.92 connection. Since September 2002, Free contributed to French ADSL boom; the offer was able to launch as soon as the incumbent was forced to stop abuse of dominant position and to apply fair wholesale prices. Unbundling, in France, refers to the obligation for the incumbent carrier France Telecom to lease the Local loop, because it is a natural monopoly. Although the unbundling process was intended to start by 2000, the actual unbundling process started at the end of 2002, after a long conflict between the French regulation authority ARCEP and the non-cooperative incumbent. Free has to pay a rental fee of €9 per month and per subscriber to the incumbent for the Twisted pair of Copper between the area central office and the subscriber premises. Although more expensive than the real cost of €7.63, this solution is still far more profitable than the bundled option.
Since January 2003, a Freenaut has maintained an unofficial website showing figures and graphics about Free unbundled network deployment. Another Freenaut website has provided network status monitoring maps Unbundling status and location since the end of 2003; these initiatives are made possible thanks to the transparency of Free's network: their equipment replies to ping and has a meaningful reverse DNS. On 11 November 2006, Free announced the deployment of a new fiber to the home network for its subscribers; the initial plan's goal is to cover Paris as well as some towns in the Paris suburbs and selected neighborhoods in other French cities by 2012. By December 2007, the work was 30% finished, the remaining work was progressing "at a furious pace". On 31 August 2007, Free updated the offer with more details. Download bandwidth shall be 100 Mbit/s and TV services shall be available for two televisions, at the same price of €29.99/month. Free has developed its own fiber network technology, called Iliad P2P, based on Ethernet in the First Mile and having a point to point topology.
High curvature optic fibers are manufactured by the Dutch company Draka. The deployment is still in the horizontal phase, large-scale deployment to customers is foreseen. On 26 June 2008, Maxime Lombardini and the mayor inaugurated Free's FTTH network in a district of Montpellier. On March 2008, Iliad made the commitment to cover Paris at 75% by the second half of 2009, reiterated its goal to connect 4 million French homes to its own FTTH network by 2012. Significant volumes of subscribers will be connected as soon as the legislative framework is in place, expected by ARCEP for autumn 2009; the Voiceband Dial-up internet access offer counts for a small number of subscribers as 98% of French homes were eligible for ADSL in 2006. Free began its activities with the famous free-of-charge Internet access, although data phone calls fees are not included. Another offer combines an Internet access with 50 hours of data phone calls for 14.94 euros per month. Freebox was the name of the Freebox device, which consists of the Set-top box and Modem.
Because of the device's popularity and reputation, it became the name of the offer. Price: 29.99 euros Best broadband connectivity available for the subscriber home: FTTH, unbundled or bundled "Triple play" or "quadruple play" services Free-of-charge migration to better connectivity when available to subscriber Possibility to update the Freebox device. By end 2008 all French IPv6 traffic measured in the study comes from Free customers. Free deployed the IPv6 infrastructure in only 5 weeks, from 7 November to 11 December 2007, thanks to an innovative 6rd proposal by Rémi Després. Wifi community networkIn May 2009 Free reconfigured the set-top boxes to act as Wifi hotspots by default. With over 3 million hotspots, it is thought to be the largest Wifi hotspot network in the world during that time, they require authentication which makes them only accessible to Free's ADSL and now mobile customers. Their main use is thus to let customers away from home continue accessing the Internet using the ADSL connection of other Free c
1080i
1080i is an abbreviation referring to a combination of frame resolution and scan type, used in high-definition television and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the screen; the "i" is an abbreviation for "interlaced". A related display resolution is 1080p, which has 1080 lines of resolution; the term assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, so the 1080 lines of vertical resolution implies 1920 columns of horizontal resolution, or 1920 pixels × 1080 lines. A 1920 pixels × 1080 lines screen has a total of 2.1 megapixels and a temporal resolution of 50 or 60 interlaced fields per second. This format is used in the SMPTE 292M standard; the choice of 1080 lines originates with Charles Poynton, who in the early 1990s pushed for "square pixels" to be used in HD video formats. Within the designation "1080i", the i stands for interlaced scan. A frame of 1080i video consists of two sequential fields of 540 vertical pixels; the first field consists of all odd-numbered TV lines and the second all numbered lines.
The horizontal lines of pixels in each field are captured and displayed with a one-line vertical gap between them, so the lines of the next field can be interlaced between them, resulting in 1080 total lines. 1080i differs from 1080p, where the p stands for progressive scan, where all lines in a frame are captured at the same time. In native or pure 1080i, the two fields of a frame correspond to different instants, so motion portrayal is good; this is true for interlaced video in general and can be observed in still images taken of fast motion scenes. However, when 1080p material is captured at 25 or 30 frames/second, it is converted to 1080i at 50 or 60 fields/second for processing or broadcasting. In this situation both fields in a frame do correspond to the same instant; the field-to-instant relation is somewhat more complex for the case of 1080p at 24 frames/second converted to 1080i at 60 fields/second. The field rate of 1080i is 60 Hz for countries that use or used System M as analog television system with 60 fields/sec, or 50 Hz for regions that use or used 625-lines television system with 50 fields/sec.
Both field rates can be carried by major digital television broadcast formats such as ATSC, DVB, ISDB-T International. The frame rate can be implied by the context, while the field rate is specified after the letter i, such as "1080i60". In this case 1080i60 refers to 60 fields per second; the European Broadcasting Union prefers to use the resolution and frame rate separated by a slash, as in 1080i/30 and 1080i/25 480i/30 and 576i/25. Resolutions of 1080i60 or 1080i50 refers to 1080i/30 or 1080i/25 in EBU notation. 1080i is directly compatible with some CRT HDTVs on which it can be displayed natively in interlaced form, but for display on progressive-scan—e.g. Most new LCD and plasma TVs, it must be deinterlaced. Depending on the television's video processing capabilities, the resulting video quality may vary, but may not suffer. For example, film material at 25fps may be deinterlaced from 1080i50 to restore a full 1080p resolution at the original frame rate without any loss. Preferably video material with 50 or 60 motion phases/second is to be converted to 50p or 60p before display.
Worldwide, most HD channels on satellite and cable broadcast in 1080i. In the United States, 1080i is the preferred format for most broadcasters, with Inc.. Viacom, AT&T, Comcast owned networks broadcasting in the format. Only Fox-owned television networks and Disney-owned television networks, along with MLB Network and a few other cable networks use 720p as the preferred format for their networks. Many ABC affiliates owned by Hearst Television and former Belo Corporation stations owned by TEGNA, along with some individual affiliates of those three networks, air their signals in 1080i and upscale network programming for master control and transmission purposes, as most syndicated programming and advertising is produced and distributed in 1080i, removing a downscaling step to 720p; this allows local newscasts on these ABC affiliates to be produced in the higher resolution to match the picture quality of their 1080i competitors. Some cameras and broadcast systems that use 1080 vertical lines per frame do not use the full 1920 pixels of a nominal 1080i picture for image capture and encoding.
Common subsampling ratios include 3/4 and 1/2. Where used, the lower horizontal resolution is scaled to capture and/or display a full-sized picture. Using half horizontal resolution and only one field of each frame results in the format known as qHD, which has fram
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen shortened to ZDF, is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, founded by all federal states of Germany. ZDF is financed by television licence fees and advertising revenues; the broadcaster is well known for its famous programmes heute, a newscast established in 1963, Wetten, dass..? an entertainment show that premiered in 1981, ended in 2014. Thomas Bellut, ZDF's director general, was elected by the ZDF Television Council in 2011. ZDF was founded in 1961 by interstate agreement, after the West German federal government's plan to set up a TV channel controlled by the federal government caused uproar. West Germany's constitution stipulated that regulation of culture and media was a competency of the federal states; the station began broadcasting from Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main on 1 April 1963, with a speech by the first director general, Dr. Karl Holzamer; the channel broadcast its first programme in colour in 1967.
In 1974, ZDF moved its base of operations to Mainz-Lerchenberg, after being located in Wiesbaden. From 5 October 1996 ZDF broadcasts 24 hours a day. In 1960, the German postal service began constructing a transmitter chain for a second television network; this new network was to be broadcast on the UHF spectrum. For older receivers, a converter was sold for about 80 DM; as with the earlier ARD television network, the location of the transmitters was planned to ensure the entire country would be able to receive the programming. To test the transmitters and encourage the public to purchase UHF receivers, the federal government allowed the ARD network to create a temporary secondary channel, ARD 2, broadcast daily from 8 to 10 p.m. ARD 2 began broadcasting on 1 May 1961 in the transmission area of Hessischer Rundfunk and a month expanded nationwide. Under the government of Konrad Adenauer, to combat these differences between the two broadcasters, ZDF was formed in 1962 with the intention of competing with the ARD.
The SPD-led states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Hesse appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, which on 28 February 1961 in the First Broadcasting Judgment blocked the plan, declaring that all broadcasting powers belonged to the states. In March 1961, the states decided to establish, independently of existing institutions, a central nonprofit public television network. On 6 June 1961, the state premiers signed at a premiers' conference in Stuttgart the interstate agreement on the "establishment of the public institution Second German Television". On 1 December 1961, though not all states had ratified the agreement, it went into force in the states that had done so; the last state, filed the instrument of ratification on 9 July 1962. ZDF is financed by a license fee of €17.50 per month, which must be paid by all households in Germany, except handicapped people and persons on social aid. ZDF shares the income with Deutschlandradio; the fees are not collected directly by ZDF, but by the Beitragsservice, a common organization of the ARD member broadcasters, ZDF, Deutschlandradio.
ZDF has income from sponsorships and programming and advertising sales. As ZDF is a channel, not a network, the channel is broadcast throughout Germany, with no regional variations or affiliates, using a number of signal repeaters. ZDF transmitters broadcast a digital signal. Analog signals were phased out, a process which lasted from 2002 to 2008. ZDF does not run any transmitters itself. Throughout the analogue days, all ZDF transmitters were run by the Deutsche Bundespost, privatised as Deutsche Telekom's subsidiary T-Systems Media Broadcast. ZDF was not allowed to use ARD's transmitters. ZDF has used both ARD and Telekom transmitters since changes to the law in the 1990s, since the digital switchover. ZDF has been relayed by cable since the days of the first cable pilot projects; the first Europe-wide satellite broadcast via Astra 1C began in August 1993 during the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin in Berlin. In the same decade, these new technologies were used to enable digital broadcasting of ZDF.
Today, ZDF is available free-to-air throughout Europe on Astra 19.2 ° Hot Bird. ZDF operates two digital channels: ZDFinfo. Both are transmitted in SD and HD. A commercial subsidiary called ZDF Enterprises GmbH manages programme sales, international coproductions, a growing number of important activities in new media. ZDF operates various channels in cooperation with other networks:KI. KA, Arte, 3sat, Phoenix ZDF's animated station-identity mascots, the Mainzelmännchen, created by Wolf Gerlach for the channel's launch in 1963 became popular and are still shown between commercials. In 1976, Otl Aicher, a graphic designer, created ZDF's corporate design. A new design for ZDF was created by Lee Hunt in February 2000. Administratively, ZDF is headed by a director general, elected by the ZDF Television Council, the composition of, in turn determined by "societally relevant groups" named in the ZDF Treaty. Directors General since the start of ZDF: 1963–1977: Karl Holzamer 1977–1982: Karl-Günther von Hase 1
Du (company)
Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, commercially rebranded as du in February 2007, is one of the two telecom operators in the United Arab Emirates. Du offers fixed line, mobile telephony and digital television services across the United Arab Emirates. Du’s official name is Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, it was commercially branded as du in February 2007. The company had 4.5 million subscribers as of the end of March, 2011. The company launched mobile telecommunication services in February of 2007 across the UAE, it reported its 2008 full year results in February, revealing it had added 1.88 million mobile customers over the 12 months. Revenue of $1.08bn was 157% up on the previous year. Before the launch of services in 2006, shareholders offered 20% of their shares in an IPO. Emirates Bank and Emirates Financial services managed the share sale. EITC is 39.5% owned by Emirates Investment Authority, 20.08% by Mubadala Development Company, 20% by Emirates Communications & Technology Company LLC and 20.92% by public shareholders.
It is listed on trades under the name du. In 2012 du achieved like for like revenues of AED 10.16 billion, an increase of 14.71% on 2011. The company acquired 1,241,251 net new mobile customers, estimating overall market share as 48.7% and value share as 32.5% in their Consolidated Financial Statements for 2012. Mobile data revenue increased by 74% on 2011 taking overall data revenues to AED 1.76 billion for 2012, an increase from 2011 data revenues at AED 1.01 billion. The company’s EBITDA growth for the 2012 was AED 3.99 billion, 37.1%, representing an EBITDA margin of 39.37% for 2012. Net profit before royalty grew by 55.81% to reach AED 2.82 billion in 2012. The Federal Government confirmed the royalty charge for 2012 at 5% of revenue and 17.5% of profit, resulting in net profit after royalty of AED 1.98 billion. Total revenue announced in du’s annual report 2012 in AED millions is: 2012 revenue split was as follows: Du offers mobile and fixed telephony, broadband connectivity and IPTV services to individuals and businesses.
The company provide carrier services for businesses and satellite up/downlink services for TV broadcasters. Subscribers to du mobile services can be identified by the dialing prefix 055 and 052. On February 11, 2007, du launched its own mobile service with call tariffs identical to those of Etisalat, thus eliminating any possibility of price competition between the two providers. Products and services promoted by du include [du Live!, Pay As You Go prepaid plan with its WoW recharge card, Emirati Plan, du TV+, the TV/Internet dual-play package Talk and Surf and the TV/Internet/Landline triple-play package Talk and Watch. Among du's services and campaigns launch were its Number Booking Campaign for both individuals and businesses, Pay by the Second billing system, Mobile TV, the prepaid plan’s recharge card'WoW', which offers customers the choice between'more credit','more time' and now the'more international' recharge option with additional credit on international calls).du has an online service portal SelfCare for bill payment and managing subscriptions for its customers.
For businesses, services include Closed Business User Group free calling, preferred International Destinations. Du Broadcast Services division brings scalable media technology platforms and telecommunication solutions to the broadcast community through its teleport and Master Control Room facilities. In Feb 2015, du started offering VoLTE through its 4G LTE network. Du first launched LTE in 2012 on the FDD-LTE Band 3 frequency, in August 2014 it was announced that du had installed and tested VoLTE over its network. In July 2014, du launched Cat. 6 LTE-Advanced with carrier aggregation and 4x4 MIMO combining 20 MHz of Band 3 and 15 MHz of Band 20. The total number of du stores in the UAE is 56 in May 2013, up from 44 in March 2012. In addition, du offers its products and services at more than 3000 authorised dealers in the UAE and through its online shop, accessible at http://shop.du.ae. Du has an overall employee Emiratisation level of 31%, with 41% of hired UAE Nationals in executive positions.
The telecom company has an established Emiratisation scheme and participates in career fairs across the UAE to capture the attention of young Emiratis. In 2012, du doubled the number of Emirati staff in their Emirati-managed and operated Fujairah-based UAE National Call Centre up to 120 employees, 90% of which are females. In 2012, 146 Emiratis have graduated from their 18-month Masar Graduate Trainee programme. Du has been involved in several corporate governance initiatives in the UAE, Middle East and the USA, promoting best practice through workshops and many more initiatives. Included among these is the sponsorship of the Abu Dhabi Corporate Governance Conference, of the Hawkamah-OECD 6th annual regional corporate governance conference. Du has applied systematic compliance, embedded within the Corporate Governance system of the company, with increased environmental initiatives following energy savings directives, as directed by Ahmad Bin Byat, Chairman of Du. Further efforts to improve corporate governance include training and development, such as DLA Piper workshop on Corporate Governance, Du's Sustainable Development Report - Materiality Session Briefing and quarterly industry trends.
Du has been ranked first in the S&P/Hawkamah Environmental and Corporate Governance Index 2011. The ranking comes as a result of the telecommunications company's sustained efforts to enhancing co
Hot Bird
Hot Bird is a group of satellites operated by Eutelsat, located at 13°E over the Equator and with a transmitting footprint over Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. Only digital radio and television channels are transmitted by the Hot Bird constellation, both free-to-air and encrypted. In addition there are a few IP services; the satellites operate at 13° East and are numbered 13B, 13C and 13D. Hot Bird 1 was launched by Ariane 44LP on 28 March 1995; the 13° east slot predates the launch, with Eutelsat 1F1 having been located there as early as 1983, Eutelsat 2F1 having served time at the location. It has reached end-of-life. Hot Bird 3 was launched by Ariane 44LP on 2 September 1997 and intended to be moved to 10°E to become Eurobird 10. During the drift from 13°E to 10°E, the satellite suffered loss of power from one solar array, it was successfully moved to 10°E, but could only operate at a reduced capacity. Since it is operating at 4°E under the name Eurobird 4. At last it was moved to 75°E and renamed to ABS_1B.
It has reached end-of-life. Hot Bird 4 was launched by Ariane 42P on 27 February 1998 and redeployed to 7°W in July 2006, becoming Atlantic Bird 4 / Nilesat 103. Hot Bird 5 was launched by Atlas-2A on 9 October 1998 and re-located to 25.5°E and renamed Eurobird 2. Six transponders are leased to Arabsat under the name Badr 2, after having been called Arabsat 2D. Hot Bird 6 was launched by Atlas V 401 on 21 July 2002. Starting on 12 June 2009, the day of Iranian elections, deliberate interference affecting this satellite was traced to Iran. Hot Bird 6 is the primary carrier for BBC Persian Television; as of 2013, it is replaced with Hot Bird 10 Hot Bird 7 was lost in December 2002 during the Ariane 5 ECA launch. Its replacement, Hot Bird 7A was launched on 11 March 2006. Hot Bird 8 was launched by Proton on 5 August 2006. With a launch mass of 4.9 tonnes, Hot Bird 8 is the largest and the most powerful broadcast satellite serving Europe. Hot Bird 9 was launched by Ariane 5 ECA in December 2008, its entry into service enabled the Hot Bird 7A satellite to be redeployed to 9° East and rebranded Eurobird 9A, increasing capacity to 38 Ku band transponders at this orbital position.
Hot Bird 10 was launched by Ariane 5 ECA in February 2009 with NSS-9, Spirale A and Spirale B. The Eutelat 33E satellite is located at 33° East, Eutelsat’s premium video neighbourhood for cable and satellite broadcasting in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Bis TV Cyfrowy Polsat Eurosport Globecast NC+ NOVA Greece NOVA Cyprus Press TV Sky Italia Tivù Sat Viacom Up to 1000 television and radio channels are available Free-To-Air. Eutelsat Satellites Eutelsat Hot Bird
Telecom Italia
TIM S.p. A. operating under the name Telecom Italia, is an Italian telecommunications company headquartered in Rome and Milan, which provides telephony services, mobile services, DSL data services. It is the largest Italian telecommunications services provider in subscribers, it was founded in 1994 by the merger of several state-owned telecommunications companies, the most important of, Società Italiana per l'Esercizio Telefonico p. A. the former state monopoly telephone operator in Italy. The company's stock is traded in the Borsa Italiana. Since 2017 the Italian State exercises the "Golden Power", which allows the government to take actions to protect the strategic interests of the country, over Telecom Italia. In 1925, the phone network was reorganised by the Benito Mussolini cabinet and the company Stipel was established in the same year; the original core of Telecom Italia included 4 companies: TIMO, Teti, TELVE and SET. Each of them operated in a specific geographical area. In 1964 these companies merged in one single group under the name of SIP.
In 1964, Società Idroelettrica Piemontese, a former energy company founded in 1918, ceased producing energy and acquired all of the Italian telephone companies, becoming SIP - Società Italiana per l'Esercizio Telefonico. It was run by the Italian Ministry of Finance. SIP was a state monopoly from 1964 to 1996 and Italian people had to pay the "Canone Telecom" in order to have a phone at home. Telecom Italia was created on 27 July 1994 by the merger of several telecommunication companies among which SIP, Italcable and Sirm; this was due to a reorganization plan for the telecommunication sector presented by IRI to the Minister of Finance. In 1995, the mobile telephony division was spun off as TIM. Interbusiness, Italy’s largest Internet network, was created and in the same period with TIN and the first ISPs, internet access became a reality in Italy. In 1996, TIM introduced a new prepaid rechargeable phone card, one year launched short messaging service capability. In 1997, under the chairmanship of Guido Rossi, Telecom Italia was privatised and was transformed into a large multimedia group.
By 2001, the company was acquired by Marco Tronchetti Provera. The following year, the group released its DSL Flat service in Italy, Alice ADSL, with a download speed of 32 kbit/s and an upload speed of 8 kbit/s for €40/month plus a monthly based tax of €14.57, the "Canone Telecom", besides the mandatory monthly bills for home telephone numbers. Telecom Italia Media, the group's multimedia company, was formed in 2003 from Seat Pagine Gialle, focussing its business on the television sector with La7 and MTV channels. After the reorganization of editorial activities, in 2005 Telecom Italia acquired Tin.it and Virgilio from Telecom Italia Media. The Telecom Italia Group operates in South America. TIM Brasil has its local headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Telecom Italia reported mounting debts in 2005, one year CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera resigned. In 2007 the company was bought by a consortium of Telefónica and several Italian banks. Telefónica owned 46 % of the holding company that controlled 22 % of Telecom Italia.
In late 2013, Telefónica announced its intention to acquire the entirety of Telco by January 2014 becoming Telecom Italia's largest shareholder. The plan, however, is being challenged by the Brazilian competition authority since Telefónica and Telecom Italia, with Vivo and TIM are the two largest telephone companies competing in Brazil. In 2015, Telecom Italia Group started a rebranding process of the telephony and mobile businesses under the single TIM brand. In the same year, the Board of Directors approved the new company's division, the Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane, or INWIT, which operates 11,500 wireless towers, it was revealed in October 2015 that shareholders Vivendi would raise their stakes further in the company from its current level of 15.49%. As of May 2017, Vivendi owns 24.6% of the company with Vivendi's CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine becoming Executive Chairman of Telecom Italia. Amos Genish is the new CEO since 28 September 2017 and he has been criticized to have fired 4500 Telecom Italia employees in June 2018.
Telecom Italia Mobile illegally charged money for Internet providing renew subscriptions for 5 years to its customers during the "free" subscription renewals. On 8 August 2012, TIM Brasil became involved in a massive scandal in Brazilian news after the release of report by the Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency Anatel; the report points that on TIM's prepaid voice plan, called "Infinity", the calls were intentionally dropped by the company, forcing the customers to make new calls to keep talking. In just one day, 8.1 million calls were dropped and the total profit was $2 million. Upon release of the report, the Public Ministry of the Paraná State filed a lawsuit against TIM asking that it stop selling new mobile lines in Brasil and pay a multimillion-dollar fine for the damages against consumers; the Telecom Italia Group provides phone landline services and mobile services in Italy, GSM mobile phone services in Italy and Brazil through its TIM subsidiary, DSL internet and telephony services in Italy and San Marino.
It operates in international telecommunication services for other opera
