New York-based Worldcom Inc, the telecommunications subsidiary of Swiss group Motor Columbus AG, has made its move to exploit the deregulation of the international calls between the UK and Germany. It claims that savings of up to 20% are possible on international voice calls – even taking the recent tariff cuts by British Telecommunications Plc and Mercury Communications Ltd into account. The two countries announced relaxation of regulations on June 28, allowing simple resale of capacity and interconnection between public and private international circuits. The only restriction left is that the connection cannot be used to link two public networks – at least one of the end points must be directly attached to the private circuit. The new regulations pull the UK and Germany in line with the US so Worldcom has built a triangular network connecting London, Frankfurt and New York. The company is support both voice and data traffic- the main selling point for voice calls will be cost – Worldcom is buying cable capacity in bulk, which is how it hopes to make its money. Data traffic is a slightly different proposition and the company is donning a ‘total solutions’ mantle complete with promises of systems integration. The company also claims that it has an advantage in the speed and ease with which it can set up high speed circuits for its customers – however this advantage has been eroded by the series of bilateral agreements.
