Ben NL

Infobox_Company
company_name = Ben
company_
company_type = Subsidiary of T-Mobile
foundation = 1999 (Relaunched as a brand in March 2008)
industry = Wireless Services
products = GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS (HSDPA), WLAN Hotspots(WiFi), T-Mobile HotSpot @Home
homepage = [http://www.ben.nl/ www.ben.nl]

Ben NL or Ben was a Dutch mobile network operator from 1999 to 2003. On September 20, 2002, Ben was purchased by T-Mobile Netherlands, a 100% subsidiary of T-Mobile International. By 2003, T-Mobile had completed a worldwide rebranding of all its mobile telecommunications assets, and the name Ben was changed to T-Mobile NL.

History

Ben emerged on the Dutch mobile market at a time when mobile phones were still a status symbol and were primarily used by business people. Ben expressly targeted a younger group of users with its trendy, minimalistic advertising using word-play with its name ("Ben" in Dutch roughly translates into "I am").

On August 28 2000, Belgacom, T-Mobile International, and Tele Danmark applied for permission to share control of Ben Nederland Holding (“Ben”). At that time, Belgacom was the principal telecommunications provider in Belgium, Tele Danmark the principal telecommunications provider in Denmark, and T-Mobile International a mobile telephony service provider and subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. Ben was to become a “full function joint venture” and function as an autonomous economic entity.