Telefónica Europe plc is a European telecommunications company providing both fixed and mobile communication products, usually under the styled brand O2 (typeset as O2). The company has its origins in a collection of worldwide mobile businesses, known in the latter half of the 1990s as BT Wireless within British Telecom and an operator-independent global mobile data business then known as Genie Internet, which was also a subsidiary of BT Group.
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Telefónica Europe plc is a European telecommunications company providing both fixed and mobile communication products, usually under the styled brand O2 (typeset as O2). The company has its origins in a collection of worldwide mobile businesses, known in the latter half of the 1990s as BT Wireless within British Telecom and an operator-independent global mobile data business then known as Genie Internet, which was also a subsidiary of BT Group.
This demerger of BT's mobile communications businesses was part of a plan to strengthen the capital position of its shareholders following declining telecommunications industry valuations in the late 1990s. The companies involved in the demerger were BT Cellnet, which became O2 UK; Esat Digifone, which became O2 Ireland; Viag Interkom, which became O2 Germany; Telfort, which became O2 Netherlands; Manx Telecom (Isle of Man); O2 Airwave (UK); and Genie Internet, which split into O2 Online and O2 Asia.
The demerger took place on 17 November 2001,...
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