Telefónica Europe business was rebranded to 'O2 Online' which continues in the UK as a mobile communications service provider tied to the O2 UK network. The Genie portal properties were rebranded O2 Active in UK, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, and Genie Asia became O2 Asia. O2 Asia became a subsidiary of O2 UK for governance purposes. On 31 October 2005, O2 agreed to be taken over by Telefónica, a Spanish telecommunications company, with a cash offer of £17.7 billion, or £2 per share. According to the merger announcement, O2 retained its name and continued to be based in the United Kingdom,
O2 (Ireland) Ireland and Three Ireland, offering services in some built-up areas in late 2006. In July 2007, O2 launched its mobile broadband offering in Ireland using HSDPA technology over its 3G network. They provided speeds of up to 7.2 Mbit/s and claimed to cover 90% of the population on the least contended Irish 3G network following an upgrade in 2007. Speak Easy was the name of O2 Ireland's prepaid service. In 2007 they became the first Irish operator to offer free text messages to all Irish mobile numbers, although it only applied for weekends. However, in early 2008 they introduced a