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'France Télécom' (, ) (often spelled 'France Telecom', without the accents, in non-French text) is the main telecommunication company in France and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 191,000 people (half outside of France) and has nearly 159 million customers worldwide (2007). For the twelve months ending September 2004 it had revenue of US$60.11 billion. The current CEO is Didier Lombard.

Contents

History

Recent acquisitions and divestitures

Subsidiaries

See also

External links

History

Up to 1988, France Télécom was known as the ''Direction Générale des Télécommunications'', a division of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. It became autonomous in 1990. It was privatized by Lionel Jospin's Plural Left government starting in January 1 1998. Its headquarters are in Paris, 6 place d'Alleray.

Recent acquisitions and divestitures

In December 2006, FT announced the acquisition of DIWAN and SILICOMP specialized on the Customer Critical Application (CCA) and Security for enterprises
In August 2005, FT acquired a 77% ownership in the Spanish mobile phone company Amena.
One of its most important subsidiaries was Telecom Argentina; France Télécom sold most of its shares in 2003, at the same time as it sold CTE El Salvador, and now only owns approximately 1% of Telecom Argentina.

Subsidiaries

France Télécom is a communications access provider offering customers access through multiple platforms. The four key platforms France Télécom operates are:
#fixed line telephone under the brand France Télécom or Telekomunikacja Polska (mainly in France and Poland).
#broadband access & mobile phone telephony through its Orange SA brand.
#most recently, IPTV, though currently only in France and Spain, with MaLigne TV, now known as Orange TV.
These four services make up the France Télécom quadruple play.
France Télécom has already begun merging the different internal divisions managing each platform and plans to rebrand each service to the Orange name starting in 2006. (See "Wanadoo is to make way for Orange").
France Telecom is present in the US through its Equant enterprise services and its venture capital arm, Innovacom as well as two R&D labs: one in Boston and the other in South San Francisco, California.
''OpenTransit'' is France Télécom's backbone network. It covers Europe, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and loops back to Paris.
GlobeCast is the world largest provider of transmission of satellite and production services for professional broadcast, online content and enterprise multimedia. Globecast World TV is a division of GlobeCast.
In 2004 France Télécom is likely to have to pay back €1 billion in alleged unlawful subsidies (in breach of state aid rules) it received from the French government, following an 18-month investigation by Mario Monti, the EC Competition Commissioner. It is understood that both France Télécom and the French government are appealing this decision.
The former CEO of France Télécom Thierry Breton was appointed in 2002 after leaving his previous company Thomson SA (formerly THOMSON Multimedia SA, owner of the legendary American brand RCA) where he served as the CEO. On February 25, 2005, he has been appointed Minister of Finance and Industries.

See also

★ Orange SA

★ List of French companies

★ Minitel

External links

★ France Télécom website

★ Divisions and subsidiaries

★ ORANGE brand website

★ France Télécom stock quote & chart