O2 (Ireland)

Telefónica O2 Ireland Limited

Company type	Private
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	1996 (as Esat Digifone)
Headquarters	Dublin, Ireland
Key people	Danuta Gray (CEO)
Products	Mobile communications services & related goods
Parent	Telefónica
Website	http://www.o2.ie/

Telefónica O2 Ireland Limited (formerly O2 Communications (Ireland) Limited, and before that, Esat Digifone) or O₂ Ireland is a GSM and 3G mobile telecommunications operator in Ireland. It is a subsidiary of Telefónica-owned Telefónica Europe Plc.

Products and Services

Currently the company is the second largest mobile phone operator in Ireland with approximately 40% market share or 1.6 million customers (see communications in Ireland). The company's STD 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.

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.

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, 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.

O2 Broadband

In July 2007, O2 launched its mobile broadband offering in Ireland using HSDPA 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 [1]

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. Unlike similar offers from Vodafone and Meteor at the time, the offer is not restricted to messages sent to their own network.

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 IRFU & the Irish Rugby 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 in the Landsdowne Road stadium.

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 The O₂ in London, UK).

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.

History

Former Esat Digifone logo

The company was originally a joint venture between Esat Telecom Group, headed up by Denis O'Brien, and Telenor, and was originally known as Esat Digifone. In 1997, it became the second company to be awarded a GSM licence in Ireland. In 2000 BT took over Esat Telecom (at the same time, taking over the Telenor shareholding in Digifone) and later demerged the mobile unit from the fixed line system which is now called BT Ireland. For a brief period the company was simply called Digifone, but following the spin off of mmO₂ from BT, the company was renamed O₂ Ireland.

Telefónica takeover

On 31 October 2005 it was announced that Telefónica SA, the Spanish telephone operator, 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 mobile is known as movistar. Rebranding to O2 is currently taking place, enabling Telefónica to create a global brand. Other countries outside Ireland, where O2 is also present are: Germany, the United Kingdom, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Criticisms

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. [2]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 the mobile giant 02 that allows it to bombard customers with unwanted text messages.

Charities were shocked when O2 Ireland quadrupled the revenue it generates from calls to charities and a number of public service bodies through the 1850 locall number.

O2 overcharged for iphones

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 cyber surf 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 it's 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 National Parents Council criticised mobile phone companies for the lack of information available about filtering. The Sunday Tribune tested access to four separate sites - a pornography site, an Irish escort site, a pro-anorexia site and a prosuicide site - on the mobile phone networks Vodafone, O2, 3 and Meteor. All four networks allowed access.

The Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints concerning advertisements by O2.

In January 2009 it was revealed that Ireland is nearly the most profitable market in the world for multinational mobile operators like O2.

In April 2008 O2 Ireland set up a Customer Forum (Talk2O2) moderated by O2 Staff (Daryll Rowe, Paddy Hourigan and the head of Customer Care Rod Coleman). This staff has given a human face to the multinational and update customers with announcements and deal with complaints publicly. It has now established itself as the largest forum of its type in the country with the help of the companies connection with the iPhone.

See also

• List of Irish companies

External links

• Official Website