The first appearance in the Italian mobile telephony market dates back to 1990 with the launch of the TACS network by the Telecom Italia Mobile Radio Services division.
Telecom Italia was officially created on 27 July 1994 by the merge of several telecommunications companies, including SIP, IRITEL, Italcable, Telespazio and SIRM (companies owned by STET). This was due to a reorganization plan for the telecommunications sector presented by Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) to the Minister of Finance.
In 1995, the mobile telephony division was spun off as Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), while Telecom Italia, under managing director Francesco Chirichigno, would take care of fixed and public telephony and network infrastructure.
On 7 October, after the experimentation period at the CSELT, TIM launched the first rechargeable prepaid card for Italy, the TIM Card, becoming the first telephone company in the world to introduce this charging system.
Towards the end of 1996 TIM was the first world operator to launch a tariff plan based on a prepaid card on the GSM network, which in a short time generated rapid growth in mobile telephony.
Interbusiness, Italy's largest internet network, was created and in the same period with Telecom Italia Net (Tin.it) and the first internet service providers (ISPs), internet access became a reality in Italy.
In 1996, TIM introduced a new prepaid rechargeable phone card (GSM), and one year later launched short messaging service (SMS) capability.
In 1997, under the chairmanship of Guido Rossi, Telecom Italia was privatised and was transformed into a large multimedia group.
By 2001, the company was in debt and was acquired by Marco Tronchetti Provera. In April 2001 it launched its first ADSL service for consumers with a download speed of 256 kbit/s and an upload speed of 128 kbit/s. The following year, the group released its DSL Flat service in Italy, Alice ADSL, with WiFi and a download speed of 256 kbit/s and an upload speed of 128 kbit/s for €40/month plus a monthly based tax of €14.57, the "Canone Telecom", besides the mandatory monthly bills for home telephone numbers (a home telephone number was required for ADSL service). Telecom Italia Media, the group's multimedia company, was formed in 2003 from SEAT Pagine Gialle, focussing its business on the television sector with La7 and MTV channels.
After the reorganization of editorial activities, Telecom Italia acquired Tin.it and Virgilio from Telecom Italia Media in 2005 .
The Telecom Italia Group also operates in South America; in Brazil as TIM Brasil, and in Argentina and Paraguay with Telecom Argentina. TIM Brasil has its local headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Telecom Italia also had a 50% share in the Bolivian telecommunications company Entel until its share was nationalised by the Bolivian government in 2008.
In 2002, TIM was the first mobile telecommunications company in Europe to launch MMS services. Between 2002 and 2004, it launched some value-added services: SMS and MMS content, Internet browsing using WAP technology, games and Java applications.
In 2003, the world's first mobile television service was launched, exploiting the video playback capabilities appearing on mobile terminals in that period and, again in 2003, it stipulated an international roaming agreement, similar to that of Vodafone, with operators world's leading mobile (T-Mobile, Orange and TeliaSonera). This alliance will be called FreeMove.
In 2004, as part of the TIM Turbo project, the EDGE and UMTS services were created for high-speed data transmission.
