- published: 10 Apr 2016
- views: 37
KPN (in full Koninklijke KPN N.V., also Royal KPN N.V.) is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company, including both 2G and 3G mobile operations. The company is based in The Hague.
The company was formerly called Koninklijke PTT Nederland, and before that Staatsbedrijf der Posterijen, Telegrafie en Telefonie or PTT and was the publicly owned fixed line operator of the Netherlands. Before the spin-off of TPG, the company also controlled the national Dutch postal services. The Dutch government progressively privatised KPN beginning in 1994, reducing its stake to 6.4% in 2005 and finally to zero in 2006. It has thus given up its golden share veto rights.
In 2001 KPN tried to merge with the Belgian telco Belgacom. It did not succeed because of the unwillingness of the Belgian government. In 2001, Spanish Telefonica expressed an interest in buying KPN.
The Japanese mobile telephone company NTT DoCoMo holds a 2% stake in KPN Mobile NV. From 2002 until 2007 KPN Mobile provided i-mode services on its mobile phone networks. i-mode as introduced by KPN's E-Plus in Germany in March 2002 and by KPN Mobile The Netherlands in April 2002 was the first mobile internet service in Europe (ahead of Vodafone's V-live).