O2 Ireland
Encyclopedia
Telefónica Ireland is a broadband
and telecommunication
s provider in Ireland. The company is marketed and trades as O2 (typeset as O2). Previously Esat Digifone, it was acquired by Telefónica
in 2006, and is a subsidiary of Telefónica Europe.
In 1997, Esat Digifone was launched as a joint venture between Esat Telecommunications
and Telenor
.
and Telenor
began to dispute how Esat Digifone should be operated. Telenor removed the word Esat from the companies name, and began the attempting to remove Denis O'Brien
as chairman of Digifone. Esat Telecom retaliated by threatening to take legal action against Telenor, and make repeated offers to buy Telenor's share of Digifone.
In November 1999, Telenor placed a bid for the entire share capital of Esat Telecom as a way of resolving the conflict. The bid was rejected by the majority shareholders of Esat Telecommunications who voted against the takeover. In January 2000, British Telecommunications counteracted Esat Telecom failed bid by placing its own bit to buy Telenor's shares in Digifone.
In January 2000, British Telecommunications
made a takeover offer for Telenor which was backed by Esat Telecommunications shareholders. Esat Telecommunications became a wholly owned subsidiary of British Telecommunications and was delisted from the stock market. When BT acquired Esat, they began integrating the business along with its Northern Ireland
subsidiary, BT (NI). This eventually became BT Ireland
. However Esat Digifone was not part of the operations integrated with BT's existing Irish operations. Instead, it became part of the BT Wireless division within BT, and was briefly rebranded simply Digifone. This branding lasted for less than six months.
s company, had made a recommended takeover bid for O2 Ireland's parent company, O2 plc
. This has been approved by shareholders and O2 was officially purchased in mid February 2006. The O2 brand is now used in several countries for Telefónica's mobile opearations outside Spain and Latin America
, where Telefónica fixed & mobile is known as movistar
. In January 2009, it was revealed that Ireland is nearly the most profitable market in the world for multinational mobile operators like O2.
prefix is 086, but following the introduction of full number portability, some O2 Irish mobile numbers now feature prefixes starting 087, 085, 089 or 083, as customers may switch provider but keep their old phone number.
The company provides WAP
and GPRS services under the O2 Active brand. In October 2005, O2 Ireland launched a version of NTT DoCoMo's
i-mode
service. The company holds a UMTS licence, and was the third Irish operator to offer 3G
services, after Vodafone Ireland
and 3 Ireland, offering services in some built-up areas in late 2006.
technology over its 3G network. They provide speeds of up to 7.2 Mbit/s and claim to cover 90% of the population on the least contended Irish 3G network following a recent upgrade
O2's IT division was outsourced to IBM Ireland
, while the Network Operations division has been outsourced to BT Ireland
(who also run the network operations for 3 Ireland). The Network team outsource is limited to the Field Operations team along with some other support functions. The Network rollout team & Transmission team remain in-house to facilitate future network changes. It was more cost effective to retain these divisions in-house.
Another high profile sponsorship agreement is their association with the Irish Rugby Football Union
and the Ireland national team
. Building on their rugby links with Shannon RFU, O2 joined forces with the top level of rugby in Ireland. They also sponsored the West Stand at Ireland's former home ground, Lansdowne Road
.
Following in the foot steps of their UK counterparts they are also the title sponsor of one of the country's most high profile venue, the Point Depot, now re-named "The O2" (as with The O2
in London, UK).
Analysis by the Sunday Independent in January 2006 showed the massive margins being earned by Vodafone and O2 in the country are costing Irish mobile phone users about €300m a year. If the mobile phone companies were to cut their Irish margins to the group average,O2 customers would end up paying €84.07 less every year (€7 a month less).
The European Commission upheld a ruling by the Irish regulatory body, Comreg, that the Irish mobile phone market needed greater competition, and acknowledged that "tacit collusion possibly existed between O2 and Vodafone".
In May 2007, O2 Ireland management announced that the entire O2 Ireland technical staff were to be outsourced to a single Managed Service Provider. The next month O2 customers got a busy signal or no dial tone at all when they tried to make calls due to a network glitch. The reason for the glitch remained a mystery at the time because the company's spokesperson couldn't be reached by the media on her mobile, also seemingly affected by the problem.
The Consumers' Association of Ireland lodged a complaint with the Competition Authority over a loophole used by O2 that allows it to bombard customers with unwanted text messages.
The telecoms lobby group ALTO criticised O2 Ireland for its decision to quadruple the revenue it generates from calls to the 1850 LoCall number. This is a fixed price, shared cost service used by charities and a number of public service bodies.
The company was criticised for its monthly subscription fees levied on Irish users of the iPhone, as they represent poor value for money when compared with the services available to customers paying similar amounts in the UK. Less than 48 hours after the much hyped launch of Apple's latest model, owners of all phones on the O2 network discovered they could not access the internet at all due to a network failure. Further criticism has come from iPhone customers regarding the continued failure of O2 to deploy Visual Voicemail. O2 was the only carrier in the world to launch the original iPhone without Visual Voicemail, one of its headline features.
O2 was responsible for the highest number of registered judgments, which financially blacklists those people who do not pay their bills on time in August 2008.
The Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints concerning advertisements by O2.
In August 2010, O2 was warned by the telecoms watchdog, ComReg, that it cannot move customers to online billing without their explicit agreement.
In March 2011, O2 pleaded guilty to a breach of the Data Protection Act at the Dublin District Court.
In March 2011 it emerged that Denis O'Brien made payments to then Minister for Communications, Michael Lowry, to aid Esat Digifone's licence bid.
Broadband Internet access
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....
and telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
s provider in Ireland. The company is marketed and trades as O2 (typeset as O2). Previously Esat Digifone, it was acquired by Telefónica
Telefónica
Telefónica, S.A. is a Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider in Europe and Latin America. Operating globally, it is the third largest provider in the world...
in 2006, and is a subsidiary of Telefónica Europe.
1997–2000: Origin
BT Ireland
BT Communications Limited is a telecommunications and internet company in Ireland. It is a subsidiary of BT Group plc.-Esat Telecom:The company was founded in 1990 by Denis O'Brien, and was originally known as Esat Telecom...
and Telenor
Telenor
Telenor Group is the incumbent telecommunications company in Norway, with headquarters located at Fornebu, close to Oslo. Today, Telenor Group is mostly an international wireless carrier with operations in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia, working predominantly under the Telenor brand...
.
2000–2001: BT ownership.
In 1999, Esat TelecomBT Ireland
BT Communications Limited is a telecommunications and internet company in Ireland. It is a subsidiary of BT Group plc.-Esat Telecom:The company was founded in 1990 by Denis O'Brien, and was originally known as Esat Telecom...
and Telenor
Telenor
Telenor Group is the incumbent telecommunications company in Norway, with headquarters located at Fornebu, close to Oslo. Today, Telenor Group is mostly an international wireless carrier with operations in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia, working predominantly under the Telenor brand...
began to dispute how Esat Digifone should be operated. Telenor removed the word Esat from the companies name, and began the attempting to remove Denis O'Brien
Denis O'Brien
Denis O'Brien is an Irish businessman with international connections. An Arts graduate of University College Dublin, O'Brien has received a MBA in corporate finance from Boston College in 1982, and was later given an honorary doctorate by University College Dublin.O'Brien has involvement with...
as chairman of Digifone. Esat Telecom retaliated by threatening to take legal action against Telenor, and make repeated offers to buy Telenor's share of Digifone.
In November 1999, Telenor placed a bid for the entire share capital of Esat Telecom as a way of resolving the conflict. The bid was rejected by the majority shareholders of Esat Telecommunications who voted against the takeover. In January 2000, British Telecommunications counteracted Esat Telecom failed bid by placing its own bit to buy Telenor's shares in Digifone.
In January 2000, British Telecommunications
BT Group
BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
made a takeover offer for Telenor which was backed by Esat Telecommunications shareholders. Esat Telecommunications became a wholly owned subsidiary of British Telecommunications and was delisted from the stock market. When BT acquired Esat, they began integrating the business along with its Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
subsidiary, BT (NI). This eventually became BT Ireland
BT Ireland
BT Communications Limited is a telecommunications and internet company in Ireland. It is a subsidiary of BT Group plc.-Esat Telecom:The company was founded in 1990 by Denis O'Brien, and was originally known as Esat Telecom...
. However Esat Digifone was not part of the operations integrated with BT's existing Irish operations. Instead, it became part of the BT Wireless division within BT, and was briefly rebranded simply Digifone. This branding lasted for less than six months.
2001–2005: O2 as an independent company
In 2001, the BT Wireless division became mmO2 plc, a separate company, through a de-merger from BT. British Telecommunications shareholders received 1 BT Group and 1 mm02 share for each British Telecommunications share they held. After the de-merger, most of mm02's operations, including Digifone, were rebranded O2. mmO2 plc later became O2 plc and remained an independent company until 2005.2005–2006: Telefónica transition
On 31 October 2005 it was announced that Telefónica, S.A., the Spanish telecommunicationTelecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
s company, had made a recommended takeover bid for O2 Ireland's parent company, O2 plc
O2 plc
Telefónica Europe plc is a European broadband and telecommunications company that trades as O2 . The company originated as a collection of worldwide telecommunications companies, known in the later half of the 1990s as BT Wireless, and a global mobile data business known then as Genie Internet,...
. This has been approved by shareholders and O2 was officially purchased in mid February 2006. The O2 brand is now used in several countries for Telefónica's mobile opearations outside Spain and Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, where Telefónica fixed & mobile is known as movistar
Movistar
Movistar is a major Spanish mobile phone operator owned by Telefónica Móviles. It operates in Spain and in many Latin American countries. It is the largest carrier in Spain with 22 million customers and 41.58% of market share. Its principal competitor in Latin America is America Movil...
. In January 2009, it was revealed that Ireland is nearly the most profitable market in the world for multinational mobile operators like O2.
Current services
O2 is the second largest telecommunications provider in Ireland, with approximately 40% market share or 1.6 million customers. The company's STDSubscriber trunk dialling
Subscriber trunk dialling is a term for a telephone system allowing subscribers to dial trunk calls without operator assistance.- Terminology :...
prefix is 086, but following the introduction of full number portability, some O2 Irish mobile numbers now feature prefixes starting 087, 085, 089 or 083, as customers may switch provider but keep their old phone number.
The company provides WAP
Wireless Application Protocol
Wireless Application Protocol is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network.A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that uses the protocol.Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer...
and GPRS services under the O2 Active brand. In October 2005, O2 Ireland launched a version of NTT DoCoMo's
NTT DoCoMo
is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
i-mode
I-mode
NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocol, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail and the packet-switched network that delivers the data...
service. The company holds a UMTS licence, and was the third Irish operator to offer 3G
3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
services, after Vodafone Ireland
Vodafone Ireland
Vodafone Ireland Limited, part of the Vodafone Group, is the largest mobile phone company in Ireland in terms of active subscribers, and was previously called Eircell. The mobile phone system in use is a digital GSM 900 system, and also a third-generation UMTS system...
and 3 Ireland, offering services in some built-up areas in late 2006.
O2 Broadband
In July 2007, O2 launched its mobile broadband offering in Ireland using HSDPAHigh-Speed Downlink Packet Access
High-Speed Downlink Packet Access is an enhanced 3G mobile telephony communications protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access family, also dubbed 3.5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G, which allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity...
technology over its 3G network. They provide speeds of up to 7.2 Mbit/s and claim to cover 90% of the population on the least contended Irish 3G network following a recent upgrade
Speak easy
Speak easy is the name of O2 Ireland's prepaid service. In 2007 they became the first Irish operator to offer free text messages to all Irish mobile numbers, although it only applied for weekends. However in early 2008 they introduced a new tariff which offers unlimited free text messages to all networks at any time, for life.Structure
O2 have recently gone through a restructuring phase, seeing it implement a number of cost-cutting measures which involve outsourcing internal divisions to external companies.O2's IT division was outsourced to IBM Ireland
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, while the Network Operations division has been outsourced to BT Ireland
BT Ireland
BT Communications Limited is a telecommunications and internet company in Ireland. It is a subsidiary of BT Group plc.-Esat Telecom:The company was founded in 1990 by Denis O'Brien, and was originally known as Esat Telecom...
(who also run the network operations for 3 Ireland). The Network team outsource is limited to the Field Operations team along with some other support functions. The Network rollout team & Transmission team remain in-house to facilitate future network changes. It was more cost effective to retain these divisions in-house.
Charitable activities
In 2006 O2 chose Irish Autism Action as their charity of choice. The three year deal involves sponsorship, creating awareness, using O2 staff to assist the charity and using technology developed by O2 to assist children affected by autism. Since 2010, the company's new charity of choice is Headstrong, a charity providing mental health support to young people.Sponsorship
O2 over the years has entered into some very high profile sponsorship arrangements. In 1998 then ESAT Digifone committed its support to the Hurlers & Footballers of Cork. They have remained proud sponsors of Cork GAA for the past ten years.Another high profile sponsorship agreement is their association with the Irish Rugby Football Union
Irish Rugby Football Union
The Irish Rugby Football Union is the body managing rugby union in Ireland. The IRFU has its head office at 10/12 Lansdowne Road and home ground at Aviva Stadium, where Irish rugby union international matches are played...
and the Ireland national team
Ireland national rugby union team
The Ireland national rugby union team represents the island of Ireland in rugby union. The team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship and every four years in the Rugby World Cup, where they reached the quarter-final stage in all but two competitions The Ireland national rugby union...
. Building on their rugby links with Shannon RFU, O2 joined forces with the top level of rugby in Ireland. They also sponsored the West Stand at Ireland's former home ground, Lansdowne Road
Lansdowne Road
Lansdowne Road was a stadium in Dublin owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union that has been the location of a number of sports stadiums. It was used primarily for rugby union and for association football matches as well as some music concerts...
.
Following in the foot steps of their UK counterparts they are also the title sponsor of one of the country's most high profile venue, the Point Depot, now re-named "The O2" (as with The O2
The O2 (London)
The O2, visually typeset in branding as The O2, is a large entertainment district on the Greenwich peninsula in South East London, England, including an indoor arena, a music club, a Cineworld cinema, an exhibition space, piazzas, bars and restaurants...
in London, UK).
Criticism
In July 2004 the company admitted overcharging 71,000 customers following a review of its systems.The disclosure means that 136,535 O2 subscribers - more than 10 per cent of its customer base - were overcharged.Analysis by the Sunday Independent in January 2006 showed the massive margins being earned by Vodafone and O2 in the country are costing Irish mobile phone users about €300m a year. If the mobile phone companies were to cut their Irish margins to the group average,O2 customers would end up paying €84.07 less every year (€7 a month less).
The European Commission upheld a ruling by the Irish regulatory body, Comreg, that the Irish mobile phone market needed greater competition, and acknowledged that "tacit collusion possibly existed between O2 and Vodafone".
In May 2007, O2 Ireland management announced that the entire O2 Ireland technical staff were to be outsourced to a single Managed Service Provider. The next month O2 customers got a busy signal or no dial tone at all when they tried to make calls due to a network glitch. The reason for the glitch remained a mystery at the time because the company's spokesperson couldn't be reached by the media on her mobile, also seemingly affected by the problem.
The Consumers' Association of Ireland lodged a complaint with the Competition Authority over a loophole used by O2 that allows it to bombard customers with unwanted text messages.
The telecoms lobby group ALTO criticised O2 Ireland for its decision to quadruple the revenue it generates from calls to the 1850 LoCall number. This is a fixed price, shared cost service used by charities and a number of public service bodies.
The company was criticised for its monthly subscription fees levied on Irish users of the iPhone, as they represent poor value for money when compared with the services available to customers paying similar amounts in the UK. Less than 48 hours after the much hyped launch of Apple's latest model, owners of all phones on the O2 network discovered they could not access the internet at all due to a network failure. Further criticism has come from iPhone customers regarding the continued failure of O2 to deploy Visual Voicemail. O2 was the only carrier in the world to launch the original iPhone without Visual Voicemail, one of its headline features.
O2 was responsible for the highest number of registered judgments, which financially blacklists those people who do not pay their bills on time in August 2008.
The Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints concerning advertisements by O2.
In August 2010, O2 was warned by the telecoms watchdog, ComReg, that it cannot move customers to online billing without their explicit agreement.
In March 2011, O2 pleaded guilty to a breach of the Data Protection Act at the Dublin District Court.
In March 2011 it emerged that Denis O'Brien made payments to then Minister for Communications, Michael Lowry, to aid Esat Digifone's licence bid.