The European Commission duly approved the joint venture between British Telecommunications Plc and MCI Communications Corp last week, and competition lawyers were studying the strings attached to the deal to see what they might indicate about how the Commission views alliances in the telecommunications sector but there didn’t seem to be many that were relevant. The Community has yet to review the alliances between Deutsche Bundespost Telekom, France Telecom and Sprint Corp, and between AT&T Co and Unisource NV.

Hands-on

Simon Taylor, a barrister at Brussels-based Norton Rose, told Reuters the Commission could use its approval of such alliances as a way to enforce European Union rules on open network provision, which require telecommunications operators to offer access to their infrastructure on a non-discriminatory basis. But Peter Alexiadis, another Brussels-based competition lawyer, argued that the presence of three major telecommunications alliances, planning to offer similar services, should make it easier for each to win clearance, since they can each argue that they are facing tough competitors. The Commission is, however, sending signals that it intends to keep a hands-on approach. Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert has said the new generation of telecommunications alliances involve a much broader or even unbounded area of competition, which meant the Commission might have to make periodic reassessments of the link-ups, or decide to clear some activities and not others. If an alliance involved an activity in which each parent company was strong in its home market, it could pose an unacceptable threat to competition, he said. He also noted problems relating to vertical links between equipment manufacturers and network operators may also be relevant in this respect. British Telecom and MCI’s partnership was cleared last month by the US Justice Department after it negotiated an agreement to ensure that US companies other than MCI, had access to the British market. Concert Virtual Network Service, as the partnership is called, was launched a few weeks after approval (CI No 2,453). Concert, will sell speech, data and video telecommunications services. British Telecom’s integrated management system company, currently called Concert, has been renamed Concert Service View. The Concert network will operate from bases in London, Paris, Sydney Tokyo and Cary, North Carolina.

Compiled by our staff from despatches

The network switching equipment contracts are with L M Ericsson Telefon AB and Northern Telecom Ltd. Ericsson is to supply its AXE10 international exchanges at Service Switching Points in London, New York, Frankfurt and Sydney. Northern Telecom is providing its DMS-250 network switching equipment at the London and Sydney Service Switching Points. Ericsson and Northern Telecom have collaborated to create an interface between the DMS-250 and AXE10, providing access to a common Service Control Point, and operator service. Concert’s Global Virtual Network Services will include corporate private number plans and calling privileges; Concert switched 56/64Kbps services for data; Concert Director Services; and Concert Card, a calling board capability offering access to operator services, networking-based call routing options, messaging and information services. Operator services will feature continuous multilingual operator assistance worldwide – and of course the thing will play you a concert while you’re on hold. The Concert Global Managed Data Services are expected to support a full range of protocols for dial-up and dedicated access at up to 64Kbps, including Async, Concert X25, Concert Systems Network Architecture and Synchronous Data Link Control and be interoperable with the Concert Frame Relay Service and Concert Managed Bandwidth Service. Of Concert Frame Relay Service, the allies say that it will support gateways to Concert and other carriers’ services and private networks, providing local network-to-local network, local network-to-host and Host-to-host transport. At the user interface, customers’

PABXes will be linked via Ericsson Business Multiplexors. Concert will offer three levels of managed data services in its Global Managed Bandwidth offering, ranging from 56/64Kbps to 64Kbps to T1/E1. These will include Standard Links, an end-to-end fixed bandwidth service; Premium Links, a service with improved network performance; and Dynamic Bandwidth that enables variable bandwidth usage. Concert Global Application Service will feature messaging, electronic data interchange and audio/videoconferencing services. Finally, the Concert Global Customer Management Services product will include event and configuration management, network performance analysis tools and management design, planning and security.

Jumped the gun

But before the Commission has ruled on the Euro-version of Concert, France Telecom and Deutsche Bundespost Telekom’s joint venture, Eunetcom has jumped the gun and announced that its Network Operations Centre in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, went live on July 11. Eunetcom has backbone hubs in Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. A node has also been installed in New York and once Eunetcom takes over the DunsNet network it acquired as part of its facilities management deal with Dun & Bradstreet Corp, a further 20 nodes across the US will be added. Nodes in Sweden and Singapore will be installed by the end of the year, as will one in Japan regulations permitting. As for the future, Eunetcom says further additions to the network will depend on customer demand: it says it plans to go-it-alone where regulations allow, but will seek out local partners where this is not possible. Gateways to public services are also to be provided, says Eunetcom. The venture is to offer three broad categories of service: Managed Bandwidth Services, Private Network Solutions and Global Outsourcing Services, with tariffs charged on a usage-based structure. Eunetcom’s Customer Service Centre will provide 24 hours a day, 365 days a year support, it claims. The network is based on Frame Relay, using equipment from Network Equipment Technologies Inc, but Eunetcom says it is deciding on a future strategy which will ‘probably’ centre on Asynchronous Transfer Mode and is currently evaluating equipment from different suppliers.