Cegetel provided good service and a recognized brand, especially in the enterprise and wholesale segments (over 16,000 corporate clients), but was probably more conservative and slower-moving.

Unlike many (80+) loss-making alternative licensed operators in France, LDCOM was unaffected by the so-called telecoms crash in March 2000 because of its cautious and pragmatic overall approach.

In contrast with the North American market, DSL is the dominant broadband access technology in France, for several reasons: the penetration of cable systems has been relatively low; the incumbent operator France Telecom and the domestic telecom vendor Alcatel decided in the late 1990s that ADSL was strategically the best choice; and a favorable regulatory environment was subsequently offered to alternative operators for the implementation of Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).

In October 2006, Neuf Cegetel announced that French competition authorities had approved the acquisition of AOL, France's internet access business, which had 505,000 customers.

[4] To aid its expansion program and accelerate the roll-out of broadband services, The Neuf Cegetel Group made an initial public offering (IPO) of its stock on the French Euronext exchange in October 2006.

[5] In July 2007, Neuf Cegetel announced that French competition authorities had approved the acquisition of T-Online France (also known as "Club Internet").

In January 2007, Neuf Cegetel purchased Mediafibre (3,000 customers), a small regional fiber-based triple play operator in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, southwest France.

[8] In April 2007, Neuf Cegetel announced that its FTTH-based triple play offering was available to 55,000 households in Paris, with internet access at speeds up to 50 Mbit/s for a headline price of €29.90 ($40.75) per month.

In December 2006, the Court of Appeal approved the initial decision of the "Conseil de la Concurrence" (an administrative authority that regulates competition) and confirmed that Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom would have to pay 256, 220 and 58 million euros respectively, because of collusion.

In November 2007, the French Senate approved an amendment to the country's budget bill for 2008 to allow the government to change the financial conditions for assigning the fourth license.

In December 2007, Vivendi's SFR mobile phone division, which owns 40.5% of Neuf Cegetel, offered to buy the rest for €4.5 billion,[7] intending to challenge France Telecom in the market for combined fixed-line, internet and cellphone services and to create "the biggest, strongest non-incumbent in Europe".

The prefix code "9" is dialled by switched voice customers before the destination number when they place calls from a different access network (France Telecom) and when they want to select Neuf Cegetel as the preferred operator.