Virgin Media O2 launched services in June 2021 as a joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica in the U.K. Liberty Global and Telefonica had reached an agreement to merge their U.K. operations in a 50-50 joint venture in May of 2020. That same month, the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to allow the proposed merger between mobile operator O2 and Virgin Media. Last month, Samsung Electronics and Virgin Media O2 announced they have successfully completed the deployment of multiple live 4G and 5G sites in the U.K. Samsung said that the companies also completed the first 5G data call on Virgin Media O2's commercial 5G network, using the sites. Field trials were jointly carried out on the sites — located in Tamworth and the Peak District, England — since the start of this year.