Telecompaper

Telefonica has agreed to buy Telecom Italia's German broadband operator Hansenet for EUR 900 million. The takeover of the DSL operator will make Telefonica the number-three player on the German market in terms of revenue, with combined annual sales of almost EUR 5 billion. Pending a definitive agreement and regulatory approval, the sale is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010. The deal gives mobile operator O2 Germany a sister company with around 2.2 million DSL subscribers, helping the operator to move into the fixed-mobile converged and bundled services market. Telefonica O2 already has around 15 million mobile customers and 200,000 DSL subscribers in Germany.