Tele2 Netherlands (formerly ''Versatel Telecom International N.V'') was a brand name of telecommunications company
T-Mobile Netherlands, operating on the Dutch and Belgian market. It sells fixed telephony, mobile telephony, broadband internet and digital TV products. On 5 September 2023, both the T-Mobile and Tele2 were rebranded altogether under one brand as
Odido
Odido Netherlands (formerly T-Mobile Netherlands) is the largest mobile phone company in the Netherlands. It was owned by Deutsche Telekom before being sold to WP/AP Telecom Holdings IV B.V., a joint venture between Warburg Pincus and Apax Partn ...
.
History
Tele2 was founded as a European company in 1993 to offer telecom services to both domestic and business customers.
In 1997, Tele2 Netherlands introduced telecoms services to the Dutch market operating as an
MVNO and competed with lower prices for mobile services.
Tele2 Netherlands was launched in 1997 and was the first Dutch company to provide IP-VPN network services.
In July 2005, the Dutch portion of Versatel was sold to
Tele2 for 1.1
billion
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions:
* 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of ...
euro
The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...
. The European commission concluded that both Tele2 and Versatel lacked the marked power to foreclose competition and allowed the sale to close.
The German part, Versatel Deutschland (now
1&1 Versatel GmbH), was sold to
Apax Partners
Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of March 2024, the firm had raised and adv ...
who merged it with
Tropolys, another German telecommunications company. In 2006, the name ''Versatel'' was replaced by ''Tele2''.
In 2009, Tele2 had nearly 400,000 subscribers.
In 2013, Tele2 had a market share in the Netherlands of 7%.
Acquisition by T-Mobile Netherlands
In December 2017,
T-Mobile Netherlands announced its intent to buy Tele2 Netherlands from its Swedish parent
Tele2 AB. After a delay because of a European Commission investigation, the merger was completed in January 2019. As part of the purchase, Tele2 AB acquired a 25% share in T-Mobile Netherlands.
On 7 January 2020, the legal entity Tele2 Netherlands Holding B.V. was merged into T-Mobile Netherlands, leaving Tele2 as a brand name of T-Mobile.
References
External links
Tele2(in Dutch), company website
List of television channels on Tele2
{{CATV Europe
Tele2
Telecommunications companies of the Netherlands
1997 establishments in the Netherlands