E-Plus

Telefonica Deutschland, Germany’s largest operator, will start to pull together its network with that of E-Plus, which it acquired from KPN in 2014, to form a single infrastructure from January next year.

German regional player Airdata filed an official challenge with the European General Court over Telefonica’s $9. 6 billion acquisition of E-Plus in Germany, which was completed last year.

Drillisch saw its status as the emerging competitive threat to Germany’s incumbent mobile operators boosted by two deals.

Following its takeover of E-Plus, Telefonica Deutschland has vowed to get on equal footing with rivals T-Mobile and Vodafone when it comes to network performance.

Telefonica closed the acquisition of smaller rival E-Plus in Germany, following what it described in a statement as “a decisive period” in its recent history with major initiatives in Germany and other leading markets.

A German proposal to cut by four per cent the charge made by operators for terminating voice calls on their networks has had a critical reception from the European Commssion, said The Financial Times (FT).

One of Europe’s key consolidation deals is moving ahead with the European Commission giving final clearance for Telefonica Deutschland to acquire German rival E-Plus.