telecommunications company . for other uses see o2 disambiguation . for three ireland the company who bought o2 ireland see three ireland . telef nica o2 ireland limited former type subsidiary industry telecommunications broadband internet access fate acquired by three 3 2014 predecessor esat digifone 1996 1996 successor three ireland hutchison limited founded ireland 1997 1997 founder esat telecom group defunct 2 march 2015 headquarters 28 29 sir john rogerson s quay dublin ireland area served republic of ireland brands 48 months 1 revenue 905 million 2009 2 number of employees 1 787 2006 2006 parent telef nica hutchison 3g ireland ltd. 2014 2015 website www.o2.ie telef nica ireland was a broadband and telecommunications provider in ireland that traded under the o2 brand typeset as o2 . o2 ireland was previously called esat digifone when it was owned by esat telecommunications and telenor from 1997 to 2006 . o2 ireland became a subsidiary of telef nica in 2006 after its parent company o2 in the united kingdom was purchased . in june 2013 hutchison whampoa announced it would acquire the irish arm of o2 for 780m . 3 o2 was merged into hutchison whampoa s subsidiary three ireland in march 2015 . 4 contents 1 history 1.1 1997 2000 origin 1.2 2000 2001 bt ownership . 1.3 2001 2005 demerger from bt ireland 1.4 2005 2006 telef nica transition 1.5 2006 2013 1.6 2013 hutchison 3 ireland merger 2 current services 2.1 o2 broadband 2.2 speak easy 2.3 o2 freedom 3 corporate affairs 3.1 company structure 3.2 charitable activities 3.3 sponsorship programmes 3.4 chief executive 4 criticism 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit 1997 2000 origin edit see also moriarty tribunal volume ii esat digifone in 1995 the then government with michael lowry as minister for transport energy and communications authorised a second mobile phone network to compete with eircell owned by the semi state telecom ireann . the licence was awarded to esat digifone a joint venture between denis o brien s company esat telecommunications and norway s telenor which began operations in 1997 . the moriarty tribunal found in 2008 that the awarding of the licence was influenced by payments made to lowry by o brien . 2000 2001 bt ownership . edit in 1999 esat telecom and telenor began to dispute how esat digifone should be operated . telenor removed the word esat from the companies name and began the attempted removal of 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 bid 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 . 2001 2005 demerger from bt ireland edit in 2001 the bt wireless division became mmo2 plc a separate company through a demerger 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 mmo2 s operations including digifone were rebranded o2 . mmo2 plc later became o2 plc and remained an independent company until 2005 . 2005 2006 telef nica transition edit on 31 october 2005 it was announced that telef nica s.a. the spanish telecommunications 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 telef nica s mobile operations outside spain and latin america where telef nica fixed line and mobile services are branded 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 . 5 2006 2013 edit on 23 march 2009 vodafone and o2 s parent company telef nica announced a deal to share their existing networks in ireland and rollout future infrastructure jointly . 6 on 6 april 2011 it was announced that telef nica o2 ireland and eircom had agreed a new network sharing partnership . 7 2013 hutchison 3 ireland merger edit on 24 june 2013 it was announced that hutchison whampoa would acquire telef nica s irish mobile operations for 780 million to be merged into 3 ireland upon completion of the deal . 8 9 10 the deal was cleared by the eu in june 2014 . on 15 july 2014 the acquisition was fully completed . on 2 march 2015 it was announced on social media that o2 ireland and three ireland were merging with o2 posting the following message to their twitter page today o2 will become three as 1.5 million customers are welcomed into the three family . this means the o2 logo will be replaced by a three logo in stores on the website and on phones and bills . all the benefits you experienced as an o2 customer remain the same including the same network quality and award winning customer service . you can also look forward to improved data coverage and superfast broadband . while three ireland posted the following message on their twitter page today we welcome 1.5 million customers to three . this means the o2 logo will be replaced by a three logo in stores on the website and on phones and bills . please visit our faq section if you have any further questions . this change now means that three ireland have over 1.5 million customers on their network putting them up near the customer numbers of vodafone ireland . current services edit o2 was the second largest telecommunications provider in ireland with approximately 40 % market share or 1.6 million customers . the company s std prefix was 086 but following the introduction of full number portability some o2 irish mobile numbers featured prefixes starting 087 085 089 or 083 as customers may switch provider but keep their old phone number . the company provided 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 held a umts licence and was the third irish operator to offer 3g services after vodafone ireland and three ireland offering services in some built up areas in late 2006 . o2 broadband edit 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 an upgrade in 2007 . 11 speak easy edit speak easy was 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 . the term speak easy was introduced when the company was branded as esat digifone . o2 freedom edit the o2 freedom plans were introduced in june 2013 which offered 2 main new price plans freedom talk and freedom internet . o2 was the first irish operator to offer free calls to all networks at any time on prepay . this offer was freedom talk and gave customers unlimited calls to all irish mobiles and landlines which required a 20 top up of which 10 was deducted for the offer . freedom internet offered 1gb of data and 350 any network texts . same terms applied as per freedom talk . in december 2013 the data allowance of 1gb was increased to 7.5 gb which o2 advertised as unlimited internet . along with the new price plan o2 also launched a vast amount of prepay addons such as talk text data international talk and international text . corporate affairs edit company structure edit 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 was outsourced to bt ireland who also run the network operations for three ireland . the network team outsource was limited to the field operations team along with some other support functions . the network rollout team & transmission team remained in house to facilitate future network changes . it was more cost effective to retain these divisions in house . charitable activities edit in 2006 o2 chose irish autism action as their charity of choice . the three year deal involved sponsorship creating awareness using o2 staff to assist the charity and using technology developed by o2 to assist children affected by autism . in 2010 the company s charity of choice became headstrong a charity providing mental health support to young people . 12 sponsorship programmes edit 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 remained sponsors of cork gaa for ten years . another high profile sponsorship agreement was their association with the irish rugby football union and the ireland national team which has been continued by three . 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 . they were also the title sponsor of one of the country s most high profile venue the the o2 now renamed the 3arena . chief executive edit tony hanway was chief executive of telef nica ireland a position to which he was appointed in september 2011 . 13 hanway first joined telef nica in ireland in 2005 as head of customer care subsequently becoming consumer sales director . immediately prior to taking the role hanway headed up the consumer division of telef nica in the czech republic managing a team of over 4000 people across the retail online and customer care functions . criticism edit this section possibly contains original research . please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations . statements consisting only of original research should be removed . july 2011 learn how and when to remove this template message 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 . 14 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