Telefónica Germany GmbH & Co. OHG (; also called Telefónica Deutschland ) is a provider of

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

, landline and mobile telecommunications in Germany. The company trades as O2 (typeset as O₂). The company was renamed from Telefónica O2 Germany to Telefónica Germany on 1 April 2011 following the completion of a merger with HanseNet. Telefónica Germany purchased E-Plus on 1 October 2014, unifying the business under O₂ brand on 3 February 2016. Telefónica Germany's main competitors are Telekom Deutschland (Deutsche Telekom's German private customer unit) and

Vodafone Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. , Vod ...

History

Telefónica Germany was founded in 1995 as Viag Interkom, as a joint venture between

British Telecommunications BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broa ...

(45%), VIAG (45%) and

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwi ...

(10%). Viag Interkom was awarded Germany's second

GSM-1800 GSM frequency bands or frequency ranges are the cellular frequencies designated by the ITU for the operation of GSM mobile phones and other mobile devices. Frequency bands GSM frequency usage around the world A dual-band 900/1800 device i ...

(also known as E-Netz ( de; ''lit. E-Network'' in Germany) license in February 1997 and began operations on 1 February 1998 in eight cities. In 2001, BT acquired VIAGs remaining shares for €11.4 billion, and the company was renamed BT Germany, it became a part of BT Wireless, a group of subsidiary companies owned by BT. BT Wireless demerged from BT in 2001 to form

mmO2 plc O2 (typeset as O2) is a global brand name owned by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica. The company uses the O2 brand for its subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Germany. Since 2018, it is also used as an online-only flanker ...

and Viag Interkom was relaunched as O2 Germany. In 2005, mmO2 plc. of which O2 Germany is a part, was acquired by Spanish telecoms giant,

Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...

. O2 Germany rebranded as Telefónica O2 Germany GmbH. In 2011, Telefónica O2 Germany merged with HanseNet and renamed the merged company to Telefónica Germany. In September 2014, Telefónica Germany announced the sale of €3.62 billion in new stock to help finance the acquisition of its competitor E-Plus from KPN. As part of the purchase, Telefónica reduced its stake in its subsidiary to 62.1%. In June 2020, Telefónica announced the sale of 10,100 mobile sites to Telxius for

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

1.5 billion.

Products

Telefónica Germany operates second, third and fourth generation mobile networks, allowing customers to use GPRS, EDGE, UMTS up to HSPA+ and LTE for data connections. Most of O2 plans are available both in a pre- and post-paid version, including the all-in-one-flatrates called ''o2 o'' and ''o2 on'' for enterprise customers. Beside the core business, Telefónica Germany is one of the largest retailers for mobile phones and tablets without a

SIM lock SIM lock, simlock, network lock, carrier lock or (master) subsidy lock is a technical restriction built into GSM and CDMA mobile phones by mobile phone manufacturers for use by service providers to restrict the use of these phones to specific co ...

. It was the first operator offering both Apple's iPhone 4 and the iPad 2. Also, Telefónica Germany offers hosting services for large and midsized companies, serving some well-known portals including

Spiegel Online ''Der Spiegel (online)'' is a German news website. Before the renaming in January 2020, the website's name was ''Spiegel Online'' (short ''SPON''). It was founded in 1994 as the online offshoot of the German news magazine, '' Der Spiegel'', w ...

and

Sevenload Sevenload was a German-based video-sharing website on which users can upload, share and view videos. Since its founding in April 2006, the platform emerged on international markets to become a Social Media Network for photos, videos and web TV ...

. Together with Microsoft and Visionapp, Telefónica Germany provides a cloud service for

Hosted Exchange Hosted Exchange is a service in the telecommunications industry whereby a provider makes a Microsoft email box and space available on a server so its clients can host their data on the server. The provider manages the hosted data of its clients ...

.Review of o2 Hosted Exchange E-Mail Service
(german) In December 2018, Telefónica Deutschland started to test the 5G on 5 sites in Berlin, in a partnership with

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

. In December 2019 the company announced the rollout of the 5G Network, starting with

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

, and

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

. Telefónica Deutschland is using

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various sma ...

and

technology on the mobile radio sites.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Telefonica Germany Telecommunications companies of Germany Mobile phone companies of Germany Internet service providers of Germany Telecommunications companies established in 1995 Companies in the TecDAX Companies in the MDAX German subsidiaries of foreign companies