BE Wholesale announces name-change to become O2 Wholesale, strengthening O2’s Joined Up Business strategy and reveals plans for new Ethernet offering
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O2 Wholesale delivers on O2’s Joined Up Business strategy and enables partners to capitalise on convergence opportunities
· Demand for new Ethernet offering expected to be high amongst wholesale partners
London, 13th March 2012: BE Wholesale, the award winning wholesale broadband division of the O2/Telefónica group, has announced that as of today it will be joining the O2 brand and re-naming as O2 Wholesale. Also being announced today are plans for the launch of the O2 Wholesale Ethernet service, providing secure, high speed data network connectivity for wholesale partners.
The name change has no effect on BE’s consumer offerings. BE Consumer and O2 Wholesale will continue to work in parallel under the same leadership, with BE continuing to offer an excellent service to the consumer broadband market and O2 Wholesale committed to serving the needs of the Channel.
O2, as the only provider in the UK owning fixed & mobile networks, is in a strong position to capitalise on current market trends driving the growth of fixed and mobile convergence, such as the consumerisation of IT and the mobilisation of the cloud. O2 Wholesale is integral to O2’s Joined Up Communications partner programme, which enables partners to work in a fully joined up way with just one provider for fixed and mobile requirements.
O2 Wholesale Ethernet will provide a secure and private network platform from which wholesale partners can connect their customers’ sites and provide them with a host of value added video, voice and data services, such as IP VPN, Cloud Computing, Internet Access and more. Key features will include uncontended bandwidth up to 1Gb, unlimited usage and dedicated fibre connection to customer sites.
Chris Stening, Managing Director of O2 Wholesale said: “As more and more applications move to the cloud and access in any location becomes increasingly important, our partners serving the UK market are increasingly looking to offer a joined up connectivity strategy to serve their customers. These changes help our partners get closer to that ideal and deliver their end users with the best fixed and mobile offerings on the market.”
Ben Dowd, Business Director of O2 said: “More than ever businesses want to simplify and leverage their communications and IT to grow their business. O2 Wholesale allows our partners to innovate on our award winning fixed and mobile networks and bring our Joined Up Business strategy to their customers.”
Going on to discuss the new Ethernet service, Chris said: “We believe the growing market for cloud services will be a key driver in increasing Ethernet take up in the coming months and years. Our award winning network and service has an enviable reputation which we are applying to our Ethernet offering to give customers the best service on the market.”
For further media information please contact:
Linda Harris, 07787 555522, linda.harris@o2.com
Tom Rutteman/Ollie Stewart, 020 7592 1200, O2Wholesale@brands2life.com
About O2 Wholesale
Owned by Telefónica UK, O2 Wholesale is a large nationwide carrier, directly reaching over 70 per cent of mainland businesses through 1300 exchanges, with one of the largest ADSL 2+ and Annex-M enabled networks in the UK. The company only sells to the Channel and offers partners a choice of two industry-leading solutions, either fully managed or direct. O2 Wholesale is the only company to offer both a fixed price model for unlimited usage as well as a more traditional usage based on the 95th percentile.
O2 Wholesale’s award winning network offers partners an unrivalled level of quality and reliability, with an infrastructure that is built for connectivity and is unconstrained by legacy congestion. O2 is the only provider in the UK owning fixed & mobile networks.
About O2/Telefónica
· Telefónica UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 23 million mobile, fixed line and broadband customers as at 31 December 2011.
· Telefónica UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc, a business division of Telefónica S.A. which uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 58.1 million customers across these markets.
· Telefónica UK employs around 11,000 people in the UK and has 450 retail stores.
· O2 is the naming rights partner of The O2, the world-class entertainment venue.
· O2’s UK 2G mobile network provides voice and data services which are available to 99% of the UK’s population.
· O2’s UK 3G (HSPA+ 900 / 2100 MHz) network currently provides voice and high speed data services to over 84% of the UK population at speeds of up to 14.4Mbp and 21Mbps in major cities.
· O2 was the first UK operator to deploy a 4G/LTE trial network which has demonstrated peak speeds of over 100Mbps to a mobile device.
· Telefónica Europe also owns 50% of Tesco Mobile, which operates in the UK and Ireland, and 50% of Tchibo Mobilfunk in Germany.
· For further press information about O2 go to www.o2.co.uk/news
