Yoigo

Xfera Móviles, S.A.

170px Blue Logo
Type	Sociedad Anónima
Traded as	Yoigo
Industry	mobile phone operator
Founded	2000, actual operation started in 2006
Headquarters	Alcobendas, Spain
Products	Products Fixed line and mobile telephony, Internet services, 3G, 4G
Parent	TeliaSonera
Website	www.yoigo.com

Yoigo is the fourth mobile phone operator with a network of its own in Spain. They operate a UMTS/3G and 1800 band network, which at their launch in December 2006, Yoigo started with a limited UMTS (3G). Yoigo has now reached 80% national coverage, incorporating 4G technology for their customers since summer 2013.

History

Originally the carrier was to be called Xfera, a name reflected in its nowadays registered name of Xfera Móviles, SA. It was formed in 2001 as a consortium to compete for a new UMTS license in Spain, which finally won out. At the time, its main shareholders were French company Vivendi, the Spanish building company Grupo ACS and Scandinavian cell phone carrier Sonera (now TeliaSonera).

Yet after several technology and market problems in 2001, in line with the general launch delay suffered by UMTS technology all throughout Europe, the company was at a standstill for several years. Its only operations during that time were creating their brand image, trying to achieve an agreement with an existing network operator to act as a backup for their fresh born 3G network and setting up some base stations so as to not lose their UMTS license, which required them to have some active service prior to a given date.

As of June 2003 most of its owners were complaining about the huge amount of money they had lost in the yet-to-be-launched project, and finally in summer 2003 Vivendi—which faced problems of its own at that time—left the company by selling its shares to the rest of owners at the symbolic price of €1.

In December 2003, with the backing of the remaining shareholders, the Board of Directors decided to make an additional investment of €135 million, and opened negotiations with Amena (now Orange España) and Vodafone Spain, in the hope of using someone else's network as a backup coverage while Xfera's own network was built. Further increasing operating costs, for legal reasons the company was obliged to keep some base stations operating from 2003 on, despite the fact that the company had no actual users. This was due to the terms in the license Xfera had been awarded, and failure to comply with such terms would have put Xfera in a poor position to rebuild a network, or even to keep the license.

The remaining shareholders as of May 2005 were some Spanish companies without any previous experience in Telecoms (ACS at 34.8% of shares, Corporación Financiera Alba at 11.7%, Abertis at 8.4%, FCC at 7.5% and Abengoa at 5.4%) with technical support from Sonera (now TeliaSonera, a Scandinavian cell phone carrier) who owned a non-controlling stake of 32.2%.

After several years during which the implementation of the Spanish government's recommendations was delayed, the latter threatened to withdraw the license if public actions were not taken. Actual operations started in June 2006, when TeliaSonera, a minority holder until then, acquired up to 76.56% of Xfera's shares and stated that they would restart building its UMTS network and start offering mobile services later in the year.

In October 2006, Xfera announced that it would launch the commercial service in December under its new brand Yoigo. The new name was chosen to reflect the simplicity in rates and ease of use of their services.

The logo also bears some resemblance to the style of 3's and Vivo's, which also have no single color set, and change colors between uses.

Yoigo Logos

LTE (4G) deployment

Yoigo will from now on use LTE (4G) 1800 MHz band for its deployment, allowing maximum speed internet connections such as 75 megas for uploading and 50 megas for downloading. The expansion of 4G or LTE coverage.

Yoigo´s LTE in January 2014

• Navarra: Pamplona – 15 mobile base stations.
• Palencia: Palencia – 6 mobile base stations.
• Lleida: Lleida – 5 mobile base stations.
• Granada: Granada – 47 mobile base stations.

Yoigo´s LTE in February 2014

• Lugo: Lugo – 9 mobile base stations.
• Ourense: Ourense – 3 mobile base stations.
• Leon: Leon – 8 mobile base stations.
• Zamora: Zamora.
• Salamanca: Salamanca – 12 mobile base stations.
• Valladolid: Valladolid – 24 mobile base stations.
• La Rioja: Logroño – 8 mobile base stations.
• Soria: Soria.
• Huesca: Huesca.
• Teruel: Teruel.
• Jaen: Jaen – 11 mobile base stations.
• Islas Baleares: Palma de Mallorca – 69 mobile base stations.
• Alava: Vitoria – 15 mobile base stations.
• Melilla: Melilla – 1 mobile base stations.

Yoigo´s LTE in March 2014

• Las Palmas: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – 41 mobile base stations.
• Las Palmas: Telde – 6 mobile base stations.
• Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Santa Cruz de Tenerife – 21 mobile base stations.
• Santa Cruz de Tenerife: San Cristobal Laguna – 17 mobile base stations.
• Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Arona – 3 mobile base stations.

Types of 4G

• 4G Coverage: Yoigo´s 4G Coverage.
• 4G Coverage Network: Yoigo started to offer 4G Coverage to its clients on 18 July 2013.
• Rates with 4G Coverage: Yoigo´s 4G Coverage it´s available for all the current rates.
• Frequency with 4G Coverage: 15 MHz in 1.800.
• Maximum speed reached with 4G Coverage: 75 Mbit/s download and 25 Mbit/s upload.

Cities where 4G is present

• Alava: Vitoria
• Albacete: Albacete
• Alicante: Alicante, Elche, Benidorm, Torrevieja, Orihuela
• Almeria: Almeria, Roquetas de mar, El Ejido
• Asturias: Gijon, Oviedo, Aviles
• Avila: Avila
• Badajoz: Badajoz
• Barcelona: Barcelona, Terrasa, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sabadell, Badalona, Mataro, Rubí, Sant Boi de llobregat, Cornella de Llobregat, Manresa, Sant Cugat del Valles, Santa Coloma de Gramenet
• Burgos: Burgos
• Caceres: Caceres
• Cadiz: Jerez de la Frontera, Algeciras, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz, San Fernando, Chiclana de la Frontera
• Cantabria: Santander
• Castellon: Castellon de la Plana
• Ciudad Real: Ciudad Real
• Cordoba: Cordoba
• La Coruña: La Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Ferrol
• Cuenca: Cuenca
• Gerona: Gerona
• Granada: Granada
• Guadalajara: Guadalajara
• Guipuzcoa: San Sebastian
• Huelva: Huelva
• Huesca: Huesca
• Islas Baleares: Palma de Mallorca
• Jaen: Jaen
• Leon: Leon
• Lerida: Lerida
• Lugo: Lugo
• Madrid: Madrid, Alcala de Henares, Fuenlabrada, Leganes, Getafe, Alcorcon, Mostoles, Alcobendas, Torrejon de Ardoz, Parla, San Sebastian de los Reyes, Valdemoro, Coslada, Las Rozas, Majadahonda, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Pozuelo de Alarcon, Pinto, Tres Cantos, Boadilla del Monte, Arganda del Rey, Mejorada del Campo, Algete, San Fernando de Henares, Paracuellos de Jarama, Velilla de San Antonio
• Malaga: Malaga, Marbella, Mijas, Fuengirola, Velez-Malaga
• Melilla: Melilla
• Murcia: Murcia, Cartagena
• Navarra: Pamplona
• Orense: Ourense
• Palencia: Palencia
• Las Palmas: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Telde
• Pontevedra: Vigo, Pontevedra
• La Rioja: Logroño
• Salamanca: Salamanca
• Segovia: Segovia
• Sevilla: Sevilla, Dos Hermanas, Alcala de Guadaira
• Soria: Soria
• Tarragona: Tarragona, Reus
• Tenerife: Santa Cruz de Tenerife, San Cristobal Laguna, Arona
• Teruel: Teruel
• Toledo: Talavera de la Reina, Toledo
• Valencia: Valencia, Gandia, Sagunto, Torrent
• Valladolid: Valladolid
• Vizcaya: Bilbao, Barakaldo, Getxo
• Zamora: Zamora
• Zaragoza: Zaragoza

Agreements on shared infrastructure or location

In July 2007, Yoigo subscribed to an agreement to share the location of antennas with its rival Movistar. The shared placement agreement included permission for each operation to install UMTS antennas in rented locations of the other, and it will allow for both companies to reduce renting costs. However, this agreement doesn’t imply that Yoigo subscribers would have full coverage or the network service of Movistar.

In January 2008, the firm made a similar agreement public about the use of shared location with operator Orange.

ADSL and Optic Fiber with Yoigo

Yoigo made an agreement with Movistar in order to use its ADSL network and Fiber Optic. Today, the “Fusion of Yoigo” is commercialized, which includes the mobile Internet and fixed of Movistar and Yoigo, creating a mix between Movistar Fusión and the taxes from Yoigo’s contract. There are three types: “Plain Fusion to Yoigo,” “Infinite Fusion to Yoigo,” and “Infinite Fiber Fusion to Yoigo.” This agreement is being researched by the National Commission of Markets and Competition, which has opened an expedited sanction of both companies to get a better understanding of how this fusion violates the Law of Competition Defense).

Subsidy of mobile devices

In its market entry, Yoigo’s CEO, Johan Andsjö, criticized the gift terminal strategy of other operators on various occasions, assuring that “they will never offer free terminals”. This supposes a different strategy with respect to the rest of the operators in Spain, where the majority of users change operator most often due to rates and services, according to studies conducted in 2005. From June 2008, Yoigo abandoned this law and began to offer terminals basically free, but in 2012 they again stopped subsidizing new phones or smartphones, uniting the Movistar and Vodafone initiative and leaving Orange as the only operator in Spain with this type of strategy.

The first week of March 2014, Yoigo announced a financing system to acquire phones with contract leasing.

Characteristics of MultiSIM Services

What does the MultiSIM concept mean? The very word tells us everything: multiple SIM cards. Meaning, we are before a service which provides consistent SIM cards to share the mobile Internet rate simultaneously and from various devices (smartphones, tablets, portable console). MultiSIM service brings about a well-established time to the primary players in OMR (Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, y Yoigo), although it is not as extensive in the OMV sector. For the moment, only Móbil R, Pepephone, Ocean’s, and most recently, Jazztel Móvil are the only companies that offer this to customers. What are the conditions? How much is said service? Below, we show you a comparative table so that you can know all of the details offered by a MultiSIM card and its actual availability in the market.

Criticisms

Before 2014

Until December 2007, the change from a prepaid service to a contract or vice versa presented technical difficulties, motivating the association of FACUA consumers to present a complaint to Yoigo. This process can be solved at any Yoigo store or by calling Yoigo customer service. In October 2008, among other novelties, Yoigo added the possibility of accessing the Internet through HSDPA (previously only available with UMTS and GPRS). At Yoigo’s market entry, at the end of 2006, CMT obligated the operator to make more than one rate available and not to impose a mandatory minimum consumption - with what secondary rates exist without minimum consumption that don’t receive publicity. The difficulty in contracting new rates resulted in Yoigo receiving complaints from FACUA (these rates are no longer available).

On the other hand, they announced the limitation of free calls in January 2008, provoking great surprise and unhappiness among customers with notable repercussions throughout digital media. Various associations of consumers, like FACUA or the Union of Spanish Consumers in Asturias, have already filed complaints against Yoigo for various reasons or they have announced their intention to do so. Yoigo addresses customers on familiar terms due to company policy. If a customer does not want the company to address them as such, they must explicitly request it. In 2013, Movistar complained that with Yoigo’s new “Infinite” rates, they are overloading Movistar Móvil’s line.

With the implementation of their new 4G network, Yoigo’s terminals suffered some errors with notifications on various applications like Twitter, Facebook, and Whatsapp. The problem lay in a delay in the reception of instantaneous notifications which required adjustments in the network configuration. This circumstance lead Yoigo to realize the necessary adjustments and actual technical errors it needed to solve and now the applications operate perfectly. On the other hand, according to FACUA, Yoigo received a total of 9.3% of the complaints related to mobile phones with less than 1% of the market quote in 2007. Since 2012, it is the fourth company after Vodafone, Movistar, and Orange to receive complaints from FACUA, with only 2.9% of the total number of complaints. That said, it is worth noting that Yoigo is the Spanish telephone company with its own network that receives the fewest complaints. Since July 2008, they started offering a lost call service through SMS. In terms of access to the Internet, they commercialized a Huawei E220 modem related to a contract with a different data rate.

Yoigo on the market

File:Yoigo sim card.JPG

Yoigo SIM card

Yoigo's operations were hastily brought to market by TeliaSonera under pressure from the Spanish government, who had seen a six-year delay in the actual use of a much-valued UMTS license. Ironically, Yoigo's president claimed they held a European record in bringing a cell company to market, since from the time when TeliaSonera had gained control to the actual date of launch only 150 days had passed.

As a result of the haste, Yoigo was basically a shell company that operated in cooperation with several subcontracted firms: Dextra Móviles for handset purchase and logistics, Seur for delivering and other companies for customer service. There was some trouble initially, especially shipping handsets and SIM cards because of logistic failures between companies. YOIGO have recognized these logistic failures and posted an apology on their website with the title: “Despite the problems suffered at the start, we all like to succeed,” in which YOIGO explained that the success of the early days far exceeded their initial expectations. (...) The company has offered a public explanation, which is more than we are used to receiving from traditional operators.

Also, Yoigo was born with largely sparse coverage of its own, relying heavily on a national roaming agreement with Vodafone's GSM network. Thus, services such as fast 3G internet access were restricted to those on Yoigo's own coverage footprint, limited to the largest cities, and others like video calling were not present at all. The coverage agreement with Vodafone was later replaced by another one with movistar.

As for the sales network, Yoigo signed an exclusive 3-month agreement with The Phone House (Spanish branch of The Carphone Warehouse) for distribution of their products in physical shops, while making most of their sales at their online shop. In April 2007 talks were started with other distributors like Carrefour and El Corte Inglés, as Yoigo is not expected to create any sales network of its own. It does have only-brand stores under the form of franchises owned by The Carphone Warehouse and other smaller groups.

However, the simple and cheap tariffs Yoigo offered (12 euro cents per minute plus 12 cents for setup fee at every call, at any time or number within Spain) plus the inexpensive data plans (0.12 cent/KiB up to a maximum of 1.20 € a day) drew customers. The company itself announced having tripled their expectations during the first months from launch and credited this unexpected success for the delays experimented in shipping of orders.

In January 2009 Yoigo reached their first million customers.

Yoigo's competitors range from the three big mobile phone network owners in Spain, Movistar (from Telefónica), Vodafone Spain and Orange España, to the new MVNOs like Simyo, Carrefour Móvil, Euskaltel Móvil, Happy Móvil (from The Carphone Warehouse) and Lebara.

Yoigo has reached an agreement with Pepephone which will allow all the Pepephone clients to make use of Yoigo´s 4G network.

On the first week of March 2014, Yoigo announced a financing system to purchase mobiles phones through a leasing contract.

Company structure

With the intention of reducing costs, Yoigo structured itself as a shell company that operated in cooperation with several subcontracted firms: Ericsson for construction, management, and maintenance of the UMTS network, Dextra Móviles for handset purchase and logistics, Seur for delivering, and Emergía for sales and customer service. Deadlines, overwhelming initial demand, and this peculiar structure brought problems during the company’s initial months of operation, especially with regards to order delivery (phones and SIM cards). Later, deliver services were apportioned to Correos in place of Seur.

As for the sales network, Yoigo signed an exclusive 3-month agreement with The Phone House (Spanish branch of The Carphone Warehouse) for distribution of their products in physical shops, although most of their sales came from their online store. In April 2007 negotiations began with other distributors like Carrefour and El Corte Inglés, as Yoigo is not expected to create any sales network of its own. Beginning in June 2008, Yoigo opened limited stores under its own brand, but not through its own ownership, rather through franchises.

Coverage & technical agreements

In its launch, Yoigo offered only offered coverage with its own 3G network in nine cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Cuenca, Sevilla, Málaga, Cádiz, and Mallorca Palma). From the fourth quarter of 2011, Yoigo also had its own 2G network. It hoped that its deployment would be quicker, to avoid providing service using other networks. Its 2G network operates in the 1800 MHz band and offers EDGE technology, while its 3G network operates in the 2100 MHz band and enables HSPA+ speeds. Since July 22, 2013, Yoigo offers 4G LTE service in certain national areas through a 1800 MHz band. Yoigo has reached an agreement with Pepephone which will allow all the Pepephone clients to make use of Yoigo´s 4G network. This has been viewed with frustration due to Movistar’s hesitancy in opening its data network up to OMV through Yoigo.

Provision of coverage through other networks

In its market entry, Yoigo had a national roaming agreement with Vodafone which guaranteed access to its GSM network until 2012, which offered 99% national coverage, significantly extending its area and quality of coverage, although access to Internet under Vodafone coverage is limited to GPRS speeds (maximum of 64 kbit/s). Therefore, some 3G network services which require a greater capacity and speed, like fast access to the internet, are limited to users who have Yoigo 3G network coverage. Customers that wish to access the internet under Vodafone coverage can do so, but only using GPRS access with smaller bandwidth. Actually, Yoigo extends its network to big population centers, although the expansion speed is limited by the hindrances of local corporations when installing new antennas. Even so, Yoigo, through Ericsson, is rapidly expanding its network.

On March 11, 2008, a new national roaming agreement was made public between Yoigo and Movistar, similar to the existing agreement with Vodafone, but beginning in June 2008 it permits Yoigo clients to use the GSM and UMTS networks of the first operator in the country (by number of clients). The initial length of the agreement is 5 years. The agreement permits the use of Movistar’s network in national territory, including protocol HSDPA, but it doesn’t guarantee the maximum data transfer speed at this standard. According to a Xataka Móvil report, the agreement with Vodafone will continue, although they prioritize the connection through Movistar.

On February 21, 2011, Yoigo announced that it will continue to use Movistar’s network to provide service to clients that cannot find coverage under their own network. On August 1, 2013, it was announced that the national roaming agreement, which gave Yoigo access to Movistar’s 2G and 3G networks, expanded its validity terms until 2016.

4G Network Expansion Project

Yoigo has already begun to work on the expansion of its 4G network in order to offer their services to about 80% of Spanish population in May 2016. At present, Yoigo's 4G technology network covers around 66% of Spanish population. The project has an investment of about 25 million euros, as the company reported. Yoigo will keep 4G technology in 50 provinces, but plans an extension to reach 1,163 Spanish municipalities, bringing its 4G technology to 7.5 million inhabitants.

Yoigo to introduce smartphone leasing

Spanish mobile operator Yoigo announced that it will introduce what it described as 'car-style' leasing deals on a range of smartphones from 5 March 2014. The operator has yet to provide details of the handsets available under the plan or specific prices, other than clarifying that customers will need to pay an upfront fee followed by 24 monthly payments, the amounts of which depend on the chosen smartphone and tariff plan. At the end of the 24 months, customers can either return the handset and sign up for a new model or else make a final payment to keep the phone.

Yoigo on TV

La Sexta, a Spanish TV channel, broadcast on September 15 (2015) an episode of El Jefe Infiltrado, a Spanish Television series based on the British series Undercover Boss, and Yoigo was the company exposed. Masha Lloyd, Yoigo´s director of communications, infiltrated the company with an alibi to justify the presence of cameras. She hid herself behind a red hair wig, a new pair of glasses and an unusual outfit, so she became unnoticed for the rest of the stuff in the company. Then, she turned into Melanie Norris, a divorced greengrocer just arrived from London.

Billing issues

Yoigo has been experiencing some problems with its billing department, but were solved by launching "Mi Yoigo" app for its clients. Any normal process is carried out rapidly and efficiently, however, if intervention by their billing department is necessary, responses become slow, laborious and even defensive.

If a new customer wants to migrate from another company and keep his number, he must provide the same ID number. Otherwise this number portability process ("portabilidad" in Spanish) will fail and must be repeated. More people are switching to Yoigo from other telephone providers, and have been for more than the last five years. Once you discover portability with Yoigo, you’ll be able to begin enjoying discounts, promotions, special offers all while accumulating points that will let you redeem fun offers, various mobile accessories and free smartphone apps.

In January 2015 we can find the following contracting opportunities: Yoigo La del Cero 1,2 Gb, Yoigo La del Uno, Yoigo La del Cinco, Yoigo La del Cero 5 Gb, Yoigo Bono Internet 1 Gb, Yoigo Fusión Fibra Infinita, Yoigo La Infinita 2 Gb, Yoigo La Infinita 600 Mb, Yoigo Fusión Plana y Yoigo La Infinita 4 Gb.

Statistics

• 2G Download Speed 1.7 Mb/
• 3G Download Speed 3.6 Mbit/s
• 4G Download Speed 14.5 Mbit/s
• 2G Upload Speed 0.7 Mbit/s
• 3G Upload Speed 1.3 Mbit/s
• 4G Upload Speed 9.5 Mbit/s
• 2G Latency 1081 ms
• 3G Latency 470 ms
• 4G Latency 140 ms
• 2G Data Reliability 92%
• 3G Data Reliability 95%
• 4G Data Reliability 97%
• 4G From the 29th of May 2013
• 824.297 Cell Towers
• 825 Cellular Networks
• 1.230.834.497 WI-FI Points

External links

• Yoigo Home Page
• Yoigo Coverage (official)
• Yoigo Coverage (independently crowdsourced by OpenSignal)
• Yoigo Online Shop