National Grid Co Plc’s Energis Communications Ltd, most abject underachiever of the UK’s major phone companies, could just be on the move at last. On Friday, it said it was ready to announce its first continental deal and that the move would help it slash the cost of European business telephone calls. Chief executive Mike Grabiner told Reuters in an interview that the company was close to closing deals with a number of European operators. We will be announcing our next agreement in the next few weeks, he said, adding that European business telephone prices were due to come down quite dramatically. Energis has already signed a correspondent agreement with Sprint Corp to end each other’s transatlantic calls, which implies that its continental agreements may be with Sprint’s European partners France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom AG, although those two are part of the rearguard trying to keep their call charges as high as possible. Energis says it now supplies services to 13,000 to 14,000 business customers, and talks of European telephone prices falling by at least 20% – and perhaps much further. Grabiner said Energis had talked with all global carriers, with the exception of British Telecommunications Plc in its search for an international partner. The Grid is committed to investing 100m pounds a year into the loss-making Energis company for the immediate forseeable future, and it is likely to sell minority stakes to partners.
