Introduction to Vodafone

Vodafone offers mobile broadband deals from around £15 a month. For this you get fast reliable broadband which comes with a capped monthly download allowance. However, it's worth noting that Vodafone often runs promotions, which means savvy shoppers can often get the same services at discounted prices.

Vodafone history

With over 20 years of experience providing mobile phone services, Vodafone is the oldest and largest mobile telecommunications company in the UK. It currently has over 187m customers in 27 countries across five continents, making it the second largest telecom group on the world.

Vodafone is a classic British success story. What started off as a small company with fewer than 50 employees working out of a single building in Newbury, has grown into a multi-national giant employing over 71,000 people around the world.

When the first UK mobile call was made on 1 January, 1985, it was via Vodafone's network. Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength.

Over the years, Vodafone has pioneered many new mobile technologies.

In 1991, it launched the first UK GSM network. 17 years later, GSM is the global standard for mobile phones, used by over 3bn people.

In 2003, it launched Vodafone live!, a multimedia portal service. Within six months, over a million Vodafone customers were watching videos, downloading songs and checking the latest sports scores, all via their mobile phones. By 2006, that number had grown to 10m.

The purchase of Cable & Wireless Worldwide

The mobile broadband provider has recently (2012) bought Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) for £1.044bn, cementing its ever strong second place in the telecommunications sector, with BT still holding onto the first place.