I’ve read it at “International Herald Tribune” and since DT is negotiating a 25%+1 shares of OTE with the Greek government I thought you might want to be the first to know.
- District courts rejected DT’s appeal to not unbundle its fiber optic network, including its new multi billion VDSL broadband network to rivals.
- Federal Cartel Office said it will further investigate whether price reductions for on-net calls by T-Mobile and Vodafone (owning more than 70% of the German mobile market combined) could unfairly drive out competitors.
- Mobile and fixed-line rivals are not so optimistic about it, since another appeal by DT can take close to a year to settle for each case respectively. On the other hand, DT representatives look pretty cool about it.
If you’re interested read the entire article.
Deutsche Telekom came under fire Thursday in Germany on two fronts, losing a legal bid to block competitors from gaining low-cost access to its network, and becoming the target of a separate antitrust investigation.
A district court in Cologne rejected a Deutsche Telekom appeal and ordered the phone company to heed a June 2007 ruling by the German telecommunications regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, to offer rivals low-cost access to its fiber optic network, including portions of its new €3 billion, or $4.7 billion, VDSL broadband network.
Separately, the Federal Cartel Office, said it would look into whether the T-Mobile wireless unit of Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone Germany, the two largest mobile operators in the country, were unfairly seeking to drive out competitors through the practice of offering low rates for calls placed within T-Mobile or Vodafone networks.
[...]
Mark Nierwetberg, a Deutsche Telekom spokesman, said the company would appeal the Cologne court’s ruling to the German Federal Administrative Court, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht, in Karlsruhe. The upper court routinely takes more than a year to hear and settle such appeals.
While welcoming the lower court’s ruling, even some Deutsche Telekom rivals conceded the decision was only a partial victory. The court ordered Deutsche Telekom to negotiate a fair price with competitors wishing to connect to its new, high-speed VDSL network, but it also ruled that Deutsche Telekom had no obligation to tell competitors where exactly it was building the network.
