Telefonica who bought O2 from BT have now acquired BE Broadband the UK broadband provider for £50 million.
The move will now see O2 being in competition with former owners BT as Telefonica push to move back into the UK broadband market after last year selling their UK arm of the business.
This is not just an ordinary acquisition of a broadband provider because Be are leading the way with providing 24MB broadband using the ADSL2+ technology.
Be have been installing LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) equipment into telephone exchanges across the country and aim to have 50% coverage by the end of 2006 and 70% coverage of the UK via their own national network by the end of 2007.
O2 will be able to compete with the likes of NTL who bought Virgin mobile, Orange Broadband that was launched earlier this month and also against TalkTalk that launched their "free broadband forever" deal earlier this year that has proved very popular in being able to offer combined deals.
The move comes as no huge surprise with O2 having been linked with buy outs of other broadband providers a number of times but the offering of 24MB broadband is going to mean other providers are going to have to look hard at their own offers and also technology as O2 jumps in front by being able to offer the fastest of the lot.
It is very likely we will see a combined deal of broadband and telephone services such as the one’s we have seen appearing throughout this year that are helping to bring prices down the more services users take.
Telefonica who bought O2 from BT have now acquired 
This is not just an ordinary acquisition of a broadband provider because Be are leading the way with providing 24MB broadband using the 