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T-Mobile operates GSM networks in Western Europe and the United States. It has financial stakes in mobile operators in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
The company has 87 million subscribers, making it the world's 3rd largest mobile phone company.
In Germany, its home market, T-Mobile is the largest mobile phone operator with 26.7 million subscribers (as of March 2004), closely followed by its primary rival Vodafone. The highly profitable GSM network in Germany is scheduled to be supplemented and ultimately replaced by UMTS, for which T-Mobile spent 16 billion DM (7.6 billion US-$) in August 2000 to acquire one of the six licences for Germany.
In the United States, T-Mobile was previously known as VoiceStream (which in turn had acquired the cellular carriers PowerTel, Aerial and Omnipoint). VoiceStream was acquired by the Deutsche Telekom in May 2001 for $24 billion. T-Mobile USA, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, is currently the 4th largest carrier in the US market with over 15 million customers. It is the only mobile phone company to operate under a single brand in both Europe and the United States.
In the US there are more than 4,500 T-Mobile HotSpot locations for Wi-Fi Internet access, including airports, airline clubs, Starbucks coffeehouses, Kinkos , and Borders Books and Music. The Wi-Fi infrastructure was acquired when T-Mobile bought WISPWISP is an acronym which stands for Wireless Internet Service Provider. These can be Wi-Fi hotspots or an operator with a Wi-Fi based network infrastructure. Often they offer additional services, like location based content, Virtual Private Networking and MobileStarMobileStar was a wireless Internet service provider which first gained notoriety in planing Wi-Fi Internet access points in Starbucks coffee shops across the United States. It ceased operation in October 2001, but its assets were bought by Voicestream Wir.
T-Mobile's global spokesperson is the actress Catherine Zeta-Jones2004 film The Terminal Catherine Zeta-Jones (born September 25, 1969) is an Academy Award-winning Welsh actress. She was born Catherine Jones and hails from Mumbles, Wales. Her name stems from two different grandmothers; one grandmother is named Catherine. In North America (prior to being bought by T-Mobile), the then-VoiceStream Wireless company's spokesperson was Jamie Lee CurtisJamie Lee Curtis Baroness Haden-Guest (born November 22, 1958) is an American film actress born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. She is known as a "scream queen" for arguably her most memorable role, that of.
The "T" in the company's name stands for "Telekom." All subsidiaries of Deutsche Telekom have names beginning with "T-".
T-Mobile is also a sponsor of several sport events in which some carry the company name. For example its own cycling teamThis article refers to road cycling teams. A cycling team is a group of cyclists who train together to compete in bicycle races such as the Tour de France. Like in other sports, different team members will have different specializations. There are climbin, the T-Mobile TeamJan Ullrich leading the T-Mobile team in the team time trial stage of the 2004 Tour de France T-Mobile Team is an international professional road cycling team. It carries, like many road cycling teams, the name of its owners and chief sponsor the T-Mobile, or the Austrian soccer BundesligaThe Bundesliga (plural: -ligen) (translation: federal league is the name for the premier league of any sport in Austria and Germany. Used on its own, Bundesliga usually refers to Germany's highest football league. The Bundesligen are, in Germany and Austr.