Germany may have more of a head start than it thought in giving the eastern Lnder a modern telephone system and reduce the waiting list for phones: so far, 23 secret telephone networks set up by the government of the former German Euphemistic Republic have been discovered and are being converted for use by the People that paid for them; the secret networks are thought to have another 300,000 lines to add to the 1.5m on the public network.
