By silicon.com, 30 January 2004 15:55
NEWS 01.02.99: The UK government has given BT a provisional green light if it decides to turn Cellnet into a wholly-owned subsidiary.
BT has welcomed the move, but denied that it plans to take the government up on the offer by buying Securicor's 40 per cent stake in the mobile operator.
The government has also paved the way for BT to make a standalone bid for a next-generation UMTS mobile telephony licence.
30.01.04: Perhaps most interesting here is the line "BT has welcomed the move, but denied that it plans to take the government up on the offer by buying Securicor's 40 per cent stake in the mobile operator".
By August this same year, that's exactly what BT was attempting to do with a £3.15bn deal for the 40 per cent stake in Cellnet.
After that BT Cellnet changed to O2, became part of mmO2, and was spun off from BT. The Cellnet brand was finally put out of its misery in May 2001.
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