According to Fintech Telecom Markets, the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom is to face competition on its international telecommunications services for the first time in its history. The competition comes from the Geneva-based reseller WorldCom, although savings on its new services will not be available to all and sundry: only companies with more than 1,000 minutes a month of international traffic will be able to make savings, which range from 4% for calls to the Middle East and Africa, 12% to Hong Kong and Singapore, and up to 25% for those calling the US. The service is at present available only in Frankfurt, but over the next six months WorldComm will be rolling it out to take in Munich, Hamburg and Dusseldorf. The terms of the licence issued from the Bundespost Ministerium do not enable WorldComm to switch calls within Germany, however – they can only be routed out of the country and switched elsewhere, preventing WorldComm from operating a national service. The move though is being viewed as an encouraging sign of the continued opening up of the European telecomms market. Typically, a port of the user’s PABX is linked to the WorldComm network via a leased line. WorldCom was is the ITT Corp company bought in 1989 by Telecolumbus (subsidiary of the Swiss Motor-Columbus).
