Until their governments begin to open their telecommunications markets to real competition, the likelihood that the US will allow the proposed investment by Deutsche Bundespost Telekom and France Telecom in Sprint Corp to go ahead at all seems remote indeed, but the German end said on Friday that the two Europeans want a stake bigger than 20% and the so-called Atlas alliance will raise it if permitted to do so. The US rules currently forbid foreign companies owning more than 20% of a US phone company.Separately, Bundespost Telekom said it expects to depreciate its physical fixed assets by more than $6,300m this year, but hopes to make this up by selling commercial property and land. On multimedia, the company said that by 1996, there will be some 7m personal computers in German homes, up from 5.4m last year. It currently has more than 14m connections on its broadband cable network and will begin offering interactive television in its cable network in 1997. On the cellular front, it expects its D1 mobile phone business to break even this year. It has around 675,000 subscribers.
