O2 (Ireland) fixed line and mobile services are branded as movistar. In January 2009, it was revealed that Ireland was nearly the most profitable market in the world for multinational mobile operators like O2. On 23 March 2009 Vodafone and O2's parent company Telefónica announced a deal to share their existing networks in Ireland and rollout future infrastructure jointly. On 6 April 2011 it was announced that Telefónica O2 Ireland and Eircom had agreed a new network sharing partnership. On 24 June 2013, it was announced that Hutchison Whampoa would acquire Telefónica's Irish mobile operations for €780 million, to be merged into
State monopoly State monopoly In economics, a government monopoly (or public monopoly) is a form of coercive monopoly in which a government agency or government corporation is the sole provider of a particular good or service and competition is prohibited by law. It is a monopoly created by the government. It is usually distinguished from a government-granted monopoly, where the government grants a monopoly to a private individual or company. A government monopoly may be run by any level of government - national, regional, local; for levels below the national, it is a local monopoly. The term state monopoly usually means a