Germany’s Postal Minister Wolfgang Btsch is due to present the government’s plans for telecommunications deregulation next Monday, but Focus magazine reckons it has seen the internal planning paper and believes it knows what the proposals will contain. It expects that there will be no advance limit on the number of companies or consortia licensed to compete with Deutsche Telekom AG from 1998 – any contender whose plans meet the criteria set by the authorities will be granted a licence. New telecommunications companies will also be allowed to focus on specific services or regions and will not have to offer a broad range of services around the country – the obligation to provide nationwide service will only apply to a company with 25% of the market , and it will be many years before anyone apart from Deutsche Telekom is in that category, although there is some pressure for a national obligation to be introduced five years after liberalisation. Initially, competitors will be free to concentrate on profitable businesses such as long distance service and regional service in large urban areas. Broad liberalisation of data communications is also envisaged, with no licence at all required for value-added facsimile and electronic mail services. Companies would also be completely free to build up their own corporate networks, enabling them to make internal calls at no marginal cost.
