The Deutsche Bundespost has clung tenaciously to its monopoly against all odds, but suddenly a greater benefit beckons, and it has moved to suspend its monopoly in order to speed up the process of giving East Germany a phone system that works – but the Luddite postal trade union is considering challenging the move in the courts: under the move, companies will be free to use satellite links to communicate by voice and data with East German subsidiaries, and can offer capacity on the networks to third parties – but the Bundespost hasn’t gone mad, and intends to reassert its monopoly on voice traffic in 1994.
