O2, the communications giant that is owned by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, has recently announced that the launch of its Broadband services in Britain are to be delayed. According to officials from Telefonica the delay is down to a few teething problems, and there should be no major setback. Officials were aiming to introduce the broadband service to Britain in spring of this year, but it is now more likely to be in September, following a re-launch of the service in Germany.
Peter Erskine, the chairman and chief executive of Telefonica O2 Europe’s mobile phone unit, stated: “There is one thing that we will not do …to launch stuff that isn’t ready on the customer.” He added: “We could have rushed out a converged service in Germany. We chose to break it up into a simplified tariff and through the year will offer a broader range of services by launching DSL as well.”
Yvan Bamping of broadband comparison site Broadband Expert agrees that “this is probably a sensible move by O2 given the problems that companies such as TalkTalk experienced, whose reputation was tarnished after negative press coverage when consumers experienced problems with a broadband service that was perhaps prematurely launched.”

O2 Germany has seen its phone service profits falling recently due to competition from other phone providers. Erskine said: “I think it has been a real wake-up call. We’re disappointed, but I think we can get this business back on the growth path.” However, when its broadband service is launched in Britain, the provider will still have stiff competition to face with the growing number of Internet Service Providers offering low cost deals on high speed Internet.

Although the launch of the O2 broadband service has experienced delays in both Germany and the UK, the delay is only likely to be a matter of months in order to sort out the teething problems, according to officials, and consumers will be able to expect a far better service right from the start as a result of this.

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