Tet

Origin

The Latvian state-owned State Company Tet (Latvian: Valsts uzņēmums "Tet", meaning "Now") was registered with the Register of Enterprises of the Republic of Latvia on January 9, 1992. Its origins were based on local telecommunications infrastructure and services previously operated by the Soviet Ministry of Communications. On December 22, 1993, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the commission's decision to select the British and Finnish consortium TILTS Communications as the winner of the tender for modernizing Latvia's telecommunications network. On January 14, 1994, the agreement with TILTS Communications was concluded and SIA Lattelekom was established. As a result of the privatization, 49% of the company's shares were acquired by two foreign investors,– Cable and Wireless and Telecom Finland, which later became part of TeliaSonera AB.

Cable and Wireless later sold its shares to TeliaSonera. Until January 1, 2003, the company held a monopoly on fixed voice communication services.

Monopoly

A 2001 telecommunications law reduced Lattelekom's fixed-line monopoly term to January 1, 2003, as part of the liberalization of Latvia's telecommunications market. Tet is also one of the owners of Latvijas Mobilais Telefons.

First rebrand (2006)

On May 18, 2006, Lattelecom implemented a rebranding, replacing the existing corporate brand name with a new brand name. Before the 2006 name change, the company had undergone a reorganisation that included SIA Lattelecom Technology and group companies involved in customer services, business process outsourcing, IT&T and content services.

The official company name, SIA Lattelekom was changed to SIA Lattelecom. The IT service provider SIA Micro Link Latvia was renamed Lattelecom Technology, and SIA C1, which had been engaged in business process outsourcing, was renamed SIA Lattelecom BPO. The network construction and maintenance company SIA Citrus Solutions retained its name.

Second rebrand (2019)

In October 2018, Lattelecom announced that they will gradually change their name to Tet, their electricity service providers' name used since 2016, with the change officially starting from on April 1, 2019. Entertainment services continued to use the Helio and Shortcut brands.

Tet Internet

Tet offers several Internet access technologies, including broadband DSL (ADSL2+ and VDSL), fiber optic Internet using GPON, Wi-Fi and 4G internet.

Optical fiber Internet

In 2009 Lattelecom started offering residential fiber optic services with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. In September 2009, Lattelecom announced that some fiber optic connections could reach 1 gigabit per second. Zolitūde was the first residential area in Riga where the Lattelecom fiber optic Internet service was made available (in January 2009), followed later by Kengarags, Purvciems, Plavnieki, Ziepniekkalns and other locations. Jelgava was the first city where fiber optic Internet was made available from areas other than Riga, but late in 2009 the Lattelecom fiber optic service was also made accessible in other cities, such as Daugavpils, Salaspils, etc. Initially, fiber optic network expansion work was carried out in the newly built dwelling areas in Riga and other largest cities of the country the rational being that return on the investment in the development of the network is possible to attain only if the newly connected building has at least 30 apartments.

The service used GPON technology. In the middle of 2012, Lattelecom fiber optic internet was available to 450,000 households throughout Latvia, about half of Latvian households. The network covered more than 45 towns and residential areas in Latvia.

Baltic Highway

A significant data transfer route, the Baltic Highway opened in 2012. The project connected the Baltic States, Poland and Germany, with an extension to the Russian Federation, and was implemented by Lattelecom in cooperation with Deutsche Telekom and MegaFon. Its initial capacity was 40 x 10 Gbit/s. The total infrastructure covered more than 45 towns and residential areas in Latvia.