also started the privatisation of Cable & Wireless, whose primary business was then in Hong Kong. Mercury: 1981–97 In 1981, Mercury Communications, Ltd – a consortium of Cable & Wireless, Barclays, and BP – was founded as an experiment in telecommunications competition, primarily to compete with British Telecom. Its first chairperson was Sir Michael Edwardes, known for his success in turning around British Leyland. Mercury Communications was first licensed in 1982, and became a full Public Telecommunications Operator in 1984. The same year, Cable & Wireless bought out the stakes of its partners. In 1989, Mercury formed a consortium with Motorola and Shaye Communications to run a national Telepoint service in the UK. Branded as Callpoint, it was not a success and closed in June 1991 after operating for a year and a half. In July 1991, Mercury's sister concern, Mercury Personal Communications Network (PCN) Ltd, was awarded one of the licences to develop & build Personal communications network (PCN) networks in the United Kingdom. The other two went to Microtel Communications, and Unitel. PCNs were envisaged to be superior to the then-existent cellular phone technology, giving customers portability to make or take calls in the home or car, in an aeroplane, or while on holiday. In November 1992, Cable & Wireless sold a 20% stake for about £480 million to the Canadian company BCEbc, the parent company of Bell Canada, which brought much-needed telecommunications expertise to Mercury. BCEbc also owned two cable companies in the UK. One2One was established as the trading name of Mercury Personal Communications, a joint venture partnership equally owned by Cable & Wireless and US West International, a division of US WEST Media Group. One2One introduced Britain's first 1800 MHz GSM network in 1993, in competition with the existing mobile networks of Vodafone and Cellnet. Mercury forged strategic alliances with 16 UK cable companies, which enabled them to offer both telephone and television services to their customers. By the end of January 1993, over 117,000 telephone lines were supplied to cable operators by Mercury. In October 1996, Mercury was merged with three cable operators in the UK (Vidéotron, Nynex and Bell Cable media) and renamed Cable & Wireless Communications (in which Cable & Wireless plc owned a 53% stake); the Mercury brand then ceased to be used. Following this, the group embarked on a major disposal programme, selling One2One to T-Mobile in 1999, then selling