Telefónica Deutschland

Inception

Telefónica Germany was founded in 1995 as VIAG Interkom, a joint venture between British Telecommunications (45%), VIAG (45%) and Telenor (10%). Viag Interkom was awarded Germany's second GSM-1800 license (also known as E-Netz (de; lit. E-Network in German)) in February 1997 and began operations on 1 February 1998 in eight German cities.

In 2001, BT acquired VIAG's remaining shares for €11.4 billion, and the company was renamed BT Germany, it became a part of BT Wireless, a group of subsidiary companies owned by BT. BT Wireless demerged from BT in 2001 to form mmO2 plc and Viag Interkom was relaunched as O2 Germany.

Takeover by Telefónica, S.A. and IPO

In 2005, mmO2 plc. of which O2 Germany was a part, was acquired by the Spanish Telefónica group. Telefónica additionally took over O2's subsidiaries in Great Britain and Ireland for a total of £17.7 billion as part of its expansion strategy into Europe. As a new subsidiary of Telefónica, O2 Germany rebranded as Telefónica O2 Germany in 2008.

Since 2006, the skyscraper Uptown Munich serves as the German headquarters. The 38-story highrise is the tallest building in Munich, designed by architect Christoph Ingenhoven.

In 2010, Telefónica O2 Germany bought broadband company HanseNet. The merged company was renamed to Telefónica Germany.

In a bid to boost revenues of up to €1.68 billion earmarked to flow into debt reduction, Telefónica announced its German subsidiary would be making an IPO (initial public offering). The IPO would involve the sale of a minority stake (23%) of the subsidiary on the 30 October 2012, prior to which point they had proceeded through a change in legal form. Telefónica Germany went public on the Franfurkt Stock Exchange on 30 October 2012 with an issue price of €5.60 under the ticker symbol O2D. Following the transition, in March 2013, Telefónica Germany was incorporated into the TecDAX stock exchange index.

Merger with E-Plus and network consolidation

In July of the same year, media reports stated that the company had proposed a merger with its rival, E-Plus, a German subsidiary of Royal KPN NV. The merger created the largest mobile phone provider in Germany in terms of network connections. The planned merger initially received resistance from a minority shareholder of E-Plus, America Movil SAB, but this was overcome in August 2013.

In mid-2014, the European Commission approved the sale of Dutch telco provider KPN's German subsidiary, E-Plus, subject to certain requirements being met. These included the transfer of 30% of network capacity and certain assets among other assurances. In exchange, KPN received €8.6 billion (€5 billion of which was cash).

Network

Telefónica Germany operates its own mobile network. On 1 October 1998, VIAG Interkom, the predecessor of Telefónica Germany, started network operation in eight German cities, among them Munich, Berlin and Hanover. After the merger with E-Plus in 2014, Telefónica Germany finalized the integration of the O2 and E-Plus networks into one singular network in August 2017, eliminating the need for National Roaming between the networks. In October 2020, Telefónica Germany started operation of its 5G network in the five largest German cities Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne.

By the end of 2025, the network consists of 29.000 network sites across Germany. The company currently offers GSM, LTE and 5G technology in its network and achieves a population coverage of nearly 100 percent for GSM and LTE technologies, and 99 percent for 5G, respectively. 3G technology has been phased out of the network by the end of 2021. The spectrum has been subsequently repurposed for more modern LTE connectivity.

At the latest 5G frequency auction, held mid-2019, Telefónica Germany acquired new frequencies worth €1.42 billion. In 2025, the frequencies in the 800 MHz, 1,800 MHz, and 2,600 MHz frequency ranges were prolonged by the German Federal Network Agency until December 2030, free of charge.

In April 2016 Telefónica announced the sale of 2,350 mobile sites to tower company Telxius for €587 million, followed by the sale of an additional 10,100 sites in June 2020 for €1.5 billion. In January 2021, the Spanish Telefónica group announced the sale of its subsidiary Telxius Telecom S.A. to American Towers for €7.7 billion. The sale included roughly 30,700 tower sites, including the recently purchased German sites.