With permits to build Metropolitan Area Networks in cities such as Frankfurt and Stockholm as well as London, MFS Communications Co Inc has become a leader in chipping away at the monopolies of continental state telecommunications operators, and in a further significant breakthrough, the Omaha, Nebraska company’s Paris-based subsidiary, MFS Communications SA, has won a licence from the Direction Generale des Postes et Telecommunications to construct and operate the first alternative fibre optic network in Paris and the La Defense office development just beyond the walls of the city. MFS expects to complete construction of the first 12 mile loop by the beginning of 1996. MFS will use the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy ring to provide access to a full range of services including international corporate speech and high-speed data services using Asynchronous Transfer Mode. As in Frankfurt, the breaking of the state monopoly is very limited because customers must be members of closed user groups, so that banks, for example, could use the net to talk to each other or to their branches in other countries but not to their customers. And in Paris, each closed group has to seek ministry approval.
