o.tel.o communications
| o.tel.o communications GmbH & Co.
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | GmbH & Co. |
| founding | 1997 |
| resolution | 2001 |
| Seat | Dusseldorf , Germany |
| management | from June 1999
until May 1999
|
| Number of employees | 3500 (1998) |
| Branch | telecommunications |
The o.tel.o. communications GmbH & Co. (also briefly Otelo ) was a 1997 in the wake of the liberalization of the telecommunications market , was established in German telecommunications provider . The company was taken over on April 1, 1999 by its competitor Arcor , who integrated the business activities into his own company and dissolved the Otelo subsidiary in 2001. However, the Otelo logo was retained as a trademark and is now used by Vodafone in a modified form . For the brand history, see Otelo (brand) .
history
The company was founded in 1997 through the merger of Vebacom and RWE Telliance . In addition to Viag Interkom and Arcor, Otelo was initially considered to be one of Deutsche Telekom's three potential main competitors for landline telephony after the liberalization and deregulation of the German telecommunications market .
Just two years after it was founded, Otelo was taken over by Mannesmann Arcor on April 1, 1999 for 2.25 billion DM (approx. 1.15 billion euros). Otelo apparently did not meet the expectations of the parent companies in terms of economic development by opening up the market for fixed-line telephone services in Germany. In addition, RWE and Veba wanted to concentrate on the supposedly more profitable business with mobile communications at E-Plus. Otelo had accumulated a loss of 5.8 billion DM in the first three years.
Arcor used the name O.tel.o until November 2001. The former Otelo customers were taken over into their own business operations and since then have received the invoices under the name Arcor, the Otelo company has thus disappeared from the market.
The Otelo brand was maintained by Arcor after the company went down, but was no longer used for several years after 2001 with interruptions. With Arcor, the rights were finally transferred to Vodafone, which they used again from 2010 to offer discount mobile phone tariffs.
Products
o.tel.o had operated various data services and networks for years through its predecessor companies. These networks, based on X.25, FramRelay, ATM and SDH, were primarily used for networking within the respective company locations. Due to the size of the respective shareholders such as Veba, RWE and their subsidiaries, these networks were already considerable. But not only "internal" customers were looked after. The cost advantage for customers, in contrast to operating their own data network, resulted from sharing the backbone.
The first market-ready product from Otelo for private customers was the calling card with the name o.tel.o card in mid-1997 , with which it was possible to make calls abroad at a reduced price using a free 0800 number. From April 1998, four months after the market opened, Otelo offered call-by-call and preselection .
The network operator code for Otelo was 01011. This code was used by Arcor until June 2006. Since July 1, 2006 the area code 01011 has been used by Steinhagener Paixas GmbH.
As one of the first German network operators, Otelo was able to offer an ISDN connection as an alternative to Telekom.
In October 2000, a mobile phone tariff and a convergence product from landline and mobile phone called O.tel.o take 2 were offered under the name o.tel.o mobil . Network partner for both products was D2 Privat / Vodafone .
technology
In 1999, Otelo owned rights to 11,000 km of fiber optic cables, which were also transferred to Arcor.
A technical problem faced by all new alternative providers to Telekom was the fact that the subscriber line from the exchange to the end customer, the so-called “last mile”, existed across the board, but was owned by Telekom. A competing new building would not have been economically viable. In order to bridge this last mile anyway, Otelo used the following techniques:
- conventional radio relay technology ,
- ATM radio link transmission,
- Wireless local loop via CDMA and DECT ,
- Cable TV infrastructure and broadband TV cable .
Services
- Free service number: o.tel.o 0800 contact : Every Otelo preselection and ISDN customer received a free 0800 number on request . This o.tel.o-0800-contact number could be passed on by families or smaller companies to a group of callers selected by them, for example to their own children or their employees. The call was thus free of charge for the caller, and the person called assumed the call charges, which were structured in a similar way to the Otelo preselection tariffs.
- Advertising-financed telephony ("free phone")
- Telephone conference without registration: o.tel.o Telephone conference offered spontaneous conference calls with up to 15 participants.
- o.tel.o internet for free : With o.tel.o internet for free, companies had the opportunity to offer their customers free access to their website. Customers could, for example, use the company's shopping offerings and select them at their leisure without time or cost pressure.
- Internet and telephony via coax broadband cable, Infocity-NRW project
- From June 1, 2001, Otelo had offered flat rates : the broadband Internet access Otelo DSL-Flat and the ISDN flat rate Otelo flat .
Sponsor in football
From 1997 to 2000 Otelo was the main sponsor of the Bundesliga club SV Werder Bremen . In the 2000/01 season Otelo was the main sponsor of the capital city club Hertha BSC .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Mannesmann Arcor buys Otelo (April 2, 1999). In: manager magazine. Retrieved June 6, 2014 .
- ↑ Shrinking regimen prescribed . In: Focus , March 15, 1999, accessed August 6, 2008.
Coordinates: 51 ° 14 ′ 12.2 " N , 6 ° 43 ′ 36.3" E