VIAG intercom

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Logo of Viag Interkom

Viag Interkom was an independent telecommunications provider in Germany that was founded in 1995 under the umbrella of the VIAG conglomerate , traded under the name O 2 from 2002 and has been a full subsidiary of the Spanish telecommunications group Telefónica since 2006 .

history

The holding company VIAG, founded in Berlin in 1923 , formed Viag Interkom in 1995 as a joint venture with the BT Group (British Telecommunications), in which RWE was also involved until autumn 1996 . On February 4, 1997, the joint venture E2 Mobilfunk GmbH & Co.KG was awarded a license for the second part of the E network (E2). The idea behind the application for the license was to combine the mobile network and landline network in a new way, which was later realized under the Genion brand. VIAG and British Telecom therefore merged the subsidiaries E2 Mobilfunk GmbH, VIAG Interkom GmbH and Bayernwerk Netkom GmbH on April 1, 1997 to form the new company VIAG Interkom GmbH & Co. The license for the newly acquired cellular network was also transferred to the new company. On October 1st, 1998, Viag Interkom started its network operations in eight metropolitan areas. Viag Interkom was next to T-D1 (founded in 1992, successor to Deutsche Bundespost ), D2  Mannesmann Mobilfunk (founded in 1989) and E-Plus (founded in 1993) the fourth German mobile operator.

Due to insufficient network coverage - only 45 percent of the population in Germany could be reached in the metropolitan areas - VIAG Interkom concluded a contract with the Swiss company Swisscom in July 1998 , so that E2 customers outside of the already developed areas could make calls via Swisscom using roaming . This roaming was cumbersome and required a dual-band mobile phone because calls were made over the D-network. Viag Interkom used the D networks of its German competitors via SwissCom, without any direct contractual relationships with them. Due to this unusual solution, VIAG Interkom was immediately sued by its competitors. In November, the EU Competition Commission had already intervened and initiated a test procedure. Without waiting for the outcome of this procedure, negotiations began with T-Mobile (D1) to anticipate a decision. In March 1999, the expansion of the E2 network reached 55 percent network coverage, and thanks to the roaming contract with T-Mobile, customers outside the metropolitan areas made calls via the D1 network.

Under the brand name Genion , Viag Interkom offered a combination of cellular and landline connection ( Fixed Mobile Convergence ) from 1999 , with which calls could be made within a so-called home area at landline-like prices and the subscriber could be reached under his own landline number on the cell phone . This was a unique selling proposition against the background that at that time calls between different networks were still considerably more expensive than calls within the fixed network. The tariff existed until April 2009 at O 2 Germany under the name Genion .

Viag Interkom owned a telecommunications network with a length of almost 4,000 kilometers in Bavaria and Thuringia , which was one of the largest private fiber optic networks in Germany in the mid-1990s . The company also owned a nationwide data transmission network (Domestic Frame Relay Service ) and offered the services of Concert Frame Relay Services , which was a joint venture between the BT Group and MCI Worldcom . The data transfer rates were between 64 kbit / s and 2 Mbit / s.

In 1997 the Norwegian group Telenor acquired 10% of the shares. VIAG and the BT Group each held 45%. After auctioning of UMTS licenses in 2000, BT Group took over the first half of 2001, the company completely. E.ON , which has now emerged from the merger of Viag and Veba , received EUR 11.4 billion for its 45% stake. The mobile communications division of Viag Interkom (later: O 2 ) was integrated into the former BT mobile communications subsidiary O 2 , the fixed network division (later: BT (Germany)) in the BT fixed network division. A little later, the BT Group parted with its O 2 holding, so that the links between the two German companies were also broken. The name Viag Interkom was given up in 2002; from then on, the provider was also called O 2 in Germany .

Sponsorship

In 1998 VIAG Interkom was the shirt sponsor of the Bundesliga clubs Eintracht Frankfurt and 1. FC Nürnberg .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Viag receives new cellular license. In: Berliner Zeitung, February 5, 1997, text online , accessed on December 6, 2013.
  2. ^ A b Klaus W. Riehmer: Access to a competitor's cellular network. In: Haarmann Hemmelrath & Partner (ed.), Design and analysis in legal, economic and tax advice for companies. Publishing house Dr. Otto Schmidt, Cologne 1998, page 455, ISBN 3-504-06022-0 , reading samples online as b / w copy , accessed on December 6, 2013.
  3. ↑ a b Viag AG bundles activities in the telecom sector. In: Computerwoche (print version), January 3, 1997, text online , accessed on December 6, 2013.
  4. ^ Dpa: New mobile service from October 1st. Viag Interkom starts with E2 network. In: Mittelrhein-Verlag GmbH (ed.), Rhein-Zeitung (print version), Koblenz July 7, 1998, text online , accessed on December 6, 2013.
  5. ↑ a b c Partial success for Viag. In: Der Spiegel (print version), SPIEGEL-Verlag, 1998, issue 46, text online . Accessed December 10, 2013.
  6. ↑ a b Heike Weber: The promise of mobile freedom. On the cultural and technological history of portable radios, walkers and cell phones. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-89942-871-1 , reading samples online . Accessed December 10, 2013.
  7. ↑ VIAG Interkom signs roaming deal with Swisscom. In: Telecom.paper BV. (Ed.), Telecompaper, Houten (The Netherlands), July 8, 1998, text online , (English). Accessed December 10, 2013.
  8. ↑ Jan Jurczyk: Start-up help for the competition. In: Berliner-Zeitung, March 8, 1999, text online , accessed December 10, 2013.
  9. ↑ Coupler services for LANs. In: tecchannel.de. Retrieved October 21, 2019 .