The company was founded in 1999, through a partnership between Società Autostrade (through Sitec, 32%), British Telecom (20%), Benetton (through the financial Edizione Holding,[1] 9%), Mediaset (9%), Distacom (9%), BNL (7%), Italgas (7%), Caltagirone (7%) and Palatinus.

[8] Also,the disagreement between British Telecom and the other shareholders with regard to distributing shares[8] put the company's participation in the auction for the awarding of UMTS licenses, which were initially confirmed,[9] in question.

[10] The case involved judicial trials that ended in January 2001 when the Lazio Regional Administrative Court annulled the government confiscation of the surety of 4 trillion lire.

[11][12] In December 2000, the company continued its development, launching a GPRS service[13] which exceeded one million users in March 2001.

On August 6, 2002, the board of directors gave the go-ahead to the company break-up, opting for the sale of the customer base (4% of the Italian market) and brand to Wind,[16] its mobile telephony systems to TIM,[17] Wind[16] and Vodafone Omnitel, the share capital at TIM and other branches of the company at H3G.