UK Mobile Network Operators.

A Mobile Network Operator (MNO), also known as a Mobile Network Carrier, is a provider of the infrastructure upon which mobile services are delivered. When a mobile customer requests a mobile service this is delivered by one of the MNOs; be that service a phone call, SMS message or mobile data request.

There are four MNOs in the UK, in size of customer base order :

• EE - owned by BT.
• O2 - owned by Virgin Media.
• Vodafone - owned by Vodafone
• Three - owned by Hutchison Telecoms Group.

These four companies provide the mobile network within the UK. They purchase, the licenses, setup the network and manage the services provided. In addition, there are a number of Mobile Network Virtual Operators in the UK. These organisations piggy-back on one of the four mobile network operators.

A bit of history.

• Vodafone was one of the two original operators for mobile phones in the UK and has been in the market from the original 1G to the current 5G. Vodafone is a company listed on the UK stock market
• The other original 1G mobile network operator was Cellnet owned and run by BT. This was was rebranded as O2 and sold to Telefonica later when BT took the commercial decision to move out of the mobile phone network business. 02 has subsequently been sold to Virgin Media and operates under the VM-O2 brand. It is a network operator covering 2G to 5G now.
• At the allocation of the 2G licences another 2 operators were allowed into the market. One being Orange. This company operated 2G then 3G networks prior to the UK operation being bought by BT and later operating under the EE brand. Orange still operate under the Orange name in various countries in Europe.
• The other new company to come into the mobile phone market with the 2G licences was One-2-One. They originally only operated within the M25 area. They then moved nationally, and rebranded as T-Mobile. T-Mobile ran a 3G network prior to the UK operation being bought by BT and merged with Orange to form EE. T-Mobile still operate in Europe and the US as T-Mobile
• Three, owned by Hutchison Telecom, were allocated a 3G network license as as new operator into the market. This company has moved on from 3G to 4G and now have a 5G license
• With the allocation of 4G licenses, BT moved back into the market when they bought some bandwidth to operate under the BT-Mobile brand. This was a reverse of their previous decision to leave the mobile market. BT never ran a 4G network under the BT-Mobile brand. At 4G launch date they already owned (UK) Orange, (UK) T-Mobile and BT-Mobile so they brought it all under the EE brand. Currently BT are in the process of branding all their customer facing products EE.