Deutsche Telekom 'must open broadband'
From Sapa-AP 22 August 2006 at 06h00
Brussels - The EU yesterday upheld an order by German regulators that Deutsche Telekom open up its high-speed Internet networks to rivals, saying telecommunications officials had overcome considerable political pressure to combat the company's monopoly.
The European Commission said the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA) had proved its independence with measures to remedy the "well-known" competition problems on the German broadband market.
Deutsche Telekom will have to allow competitors to buy high-speed Internet access on its network that would allow them to offer their own services to end users, such as voice over Internet protocol telephone calls or internet television. BNetzA will also have to approve the price charged by Deutsche Telekom in advance.
Deutsche Telekom has refused to grant other wholesalers access to its infrastructure in the past, forcing rivals to build their own networks - an expensive outlay that prevents them from operating outside cities.
The EU said this led to substantially higher Internet prices in rural areas, criticising Germany's slowness in opening up the broadband market to competition and urging BNetzA to implement its order without further delay.
"Time is a crucial factor," said EU information society commissioner Viviane Reding. "While bitstream access has already been available to new market entrants in the vast majority of EU member states for a number of years, it has taken the German regulator more than three years since the entry into force of the EU telecoms rules … to take the required measures."
BNetzA needs EU approval for orders to open up the telecoms market.
Bitstream access gives rivals more control over the quality of the services it offers so they can offer different bandwidth as well as upload and download speeds.
Deutsche Telekom will also have to grant bitstream access to its new €3 billion (R27-billion) infrastructure for very high data rate digital subscriber lines.
The former German state-owned telephone company plans to roll out a high-speed fibreoptic network that will transmit data up to 20 times faster than current offerings. The plan is to provide Germany's 50 largest cities high-speed broadband lines by 2007.