Brussels, 02/08/2000 (Agence Europe) - This Wednesday the European Commission authorised the sale by Deutsche Telekom (DT) of a stake in its regional cable television network in Baden-Wurttemberg to the American telecommunications company Callahan Associated International. It is selling to Callahan 55% of the shares in Kabel Baden-Wurttemberg (KBW), a fictitious company to which DT had sold the stake it held in the cable network of this Land. DT will continue to own 45% of the remain shares through its subsidiary Kabel Deutscheland GmbH. Following this operation, Callahan will acquire its second regional cable television network from Deutsche Telekom: in fact, it has already bought the cable network that DT owned in Rhenanie-du-nord-Westphalia (KNW), an operation authorised by the Commission last June. In a Communiqué, the Commission feels that "although KBW will have a de facto monopoly for cable operations in its territory, the transaction does not create or strengthen a dominant position on the market for pay-television services in Germany, as KBW is simply taking over the position previously held by DT. After upgrading the network, KBW will be in a position to compete directly with DT by offering local telephony and internet access".
KBW will conclude several agreements with a subsidiary of DT, Media Services GmbH, to obtain technical services and marketing that, according to the Commission, are not directly linked to the operation and are not targeted by this decision.
For one of the Commission spokespersons, Amelia Torres, "this operation is in line with the Directive for the liberalisation of telecommunication, which calls on incumbent operators to open their cable networks to competition, for make available to the new entrants the information networks". She underlines the DT has anticipated this measure by creating regional companies that it has progressively sold. The sale of KBW is the third of this kind since 1999: DT has in fact sold 65% of the activities it held in the Land of Hessen to the American company NTL Inc.