Editing E-Plus (section)

=== First GSM license ===
The company was awarded Germany's first DCS-1800 (later renamed [[GSM1800|GSM-1800]], also known as E-Netz ([[:de:E-Netz|de]]; ''lit. E-Network'') in Germany) license in 1993. One term of the [[licence]] was that no further [[Mobile network operator]] could be started within 3 years of the start of the network.

The network started operation as a "metropolitan" network, with coverage only in the biggest cities, in 1994. The coverage area was expanded rapidly, but for years the network's image was hampered by the view that its coverage was lacking. As a countermeasure, [[voicemail]] retrieval was free of charge for the first of years of operation, and calls were billed in six-second increments (in contrast to the one-minute increments of the other networks); after [[Short message service|text messaging]] was introduced, it too was free for some time.

E-Plus was the second network in Germany to offer prepaid tariffs to its customers (after T-Mobile's XtraCard) and later introduced [[High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data|HSCSD]], which boosts data rates on [[Global System for Mobile Communications|GSM]] networks to analogue modem speed levels. Shortly after that, E-Plus upgraded its network to support [[General Packet Radio Service|GPRS]]. They now also operate a [[3G]] [[Universal Mobile Telecommunications System|UMTS]] network.