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About Us
While our company name is Telefónica O2 Ireland, we are known to our customers simply as O2.
We are a leading provider of mobile services, offering communications solutions to over 1.7 million customers in Ireland. Headquartered in Dublin's Docklands, and with a Customer Care Centre in Limerick, O2 has a total workforce of over 1,300 employees.
In 2006, O2 was named the best company to work for in Ireland. In 2008, O2 Customer Care was named Call Centre of the Year, and O2 was also named Best Retail Employer in Ireland.
A Short History
O2 began life as Esat Digifone in Ireland in 1996.
In 2000 British Telecom acquired Esat Digifone and subsequently demerged its wireless division – called mmO2 - in 2001.
In 2002, mmO2 rebranded and the O2 group of companies was officially launched.
In March 2006, O2 was acquired by Telefónica S.A. one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world and the O2 group of companies became known as Telefónica Europe.
In addition to O2 in Ireland, Telefónica Europe provides integrated mobile, fixed and broadband services in the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia under the O2 brand name.
Telefónica Europe's parent company, Telefónica S.A., is headquartered in Spain and is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, with a presence in 25 countries. Telefónica employs more than 250,000 people and has a customer base that amounts to 259 million accesses around the world.
O2 - Key milestones in Ireland
- May 1996: GSM (2G) licence awarded to Esat Digifone
- May 1997: Launch of 2G services
- November 1998: Prepay launch
- March 2000: 1,000,000 customers
- January 2002: GPRS (2.5G) commercially launched in Ireland
- February 2002: O2 brand is launched
- February 2002: BlackBerry launched in Ireland
- August 2002: O2 is awarded 3G licence
- June 2003: Full mobile number portability Introduced
- June 2004: 1,000,000 prepay customers
- February 2006: Abolished roaming on the Island of Ireland
- July 2007: Launched Mobile Broadband
- March 2008: iPhone launches
- December 2008: The O2 opens for business
Recent Business highlights
See Press section for more information
Market leading price plans
O2 Experience: In January 2008, O2 announced the O2 Experience price plan - offering prepay customers the ability to send unlimited free texts to any other Irish mobile network at any time for life. Update with new Experience details
O2 Clear: Launched in April 2008, O2 Clear revolutionised the bill pay market in Ireland by allowing customers greater control over their contract length and how much they spend each month.
O2 brings iPhone to Ireland
In 2008 O2 announced that it was the exclusive Irish carrier for Apple's eagerly anticipated iPhone – with iPhone 3G hitting the shelves on 11 July. The 8GB iPhone 3G costs just €49 on the €100 monthly iPhone tariff, €99 on the €65 tariff and €169 on the €45 tariff. The 16GB iPhone 3G costs €129 on the €100 monthly tariff option, €169 on the €65 tariff and €229 on the €45 tariff. All iPhone tariffs include anytime minutes, texts and a 1GB data bundle.
The O2
In July 2008 O2 announced that it had negotiated Ireland's first ever music venue naming rights deal with Live Nation, one of the biggest live entertainment promoters in the world, at the redeveloped Point Theatre in Dublin's Docklands. With a capacity to hold up to 14,000 people, the new venue, called The O2, officially opened its doors on December 16th 2008.
And O2 customers can take their seat early with O2 priority tickets. Priority tickets go on sale up to 48 hours before general release, so O2 customers have the chance to buy tickets first. For more priority ticket news visit www.o2blueroom.ie
O2's Network
In August 2006 O2 announced a major multi-million Euro investment in its network. The project was completed in 2008 and in addition to delivering higher quality voice and data services, O2's next generation network has paved the way for the introduction of mobile broadband services, while also allowing us to develop new and competitive services. As part of the network investment, O2 now also has an EDGE network, which offers speeds 4 to 5 times faster than GPRS. This is a feature that is absolutely unique to O2 in the Irish marketplace.
O2 Mobile Broadband
On 9 July 2007, O2 launched its mobile broadband service utilising HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology. Since then the service has proved to be extremely popular with almost 100,000 customers now signed up. New developments have also been announced including a first-to-market upload service enabling customers to upload content at speeds significantly faster than other similar services in the market.
Innovative new services
Spend Alerts
Launched as part of O2 Clear in 2008, this is an innovative text service that alerts customers when they have reached a particular amount on their bill
SIM Back-up
O2 Ireland has launched a new SIM card back up service that allows customers to retrieve key contacts and numbers if they lose or damage their mobile phone. O2 is the first mobile provider to offer a SIM back up service of this kind in Ireland. With the new service, numbers which are stored on the SIM Card are backed up to a secure server on the O2 network and customers can then access this data on O2.ie through the "My O2" function.
