Germany

[DE] Federal Cartels Office Approves Broadband Cable Network Co-operation Model

IRIS 2002-9:1/29

Caroline Hilger

Saarbrücken

On 22 July, the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartels Office) announced that, from a competition point of view, there was no reason to prevent co-operation between Deutsche Telekom AG (DTAG) and housing companies in connection with the development of the level 4 cable network (connecting the boundary of the individual house to a connection point inside the house). According to the co-operation model, Kabel Deutschland GmbH (KDG), a subsidiary of DTAG, will take responsibility for upgrading the cable networks on behalf of housing companies. Although the housing industry will continue to provide cable households with signals transmitted via the cable network from property boundaries to the cable connection points of individual homes, KDG will be able to offer broadband Internet services and additional digital TV services and games via the updated network. By means of such co-operation, the level 3 (network between the cable head-end and a connection point at the boundary of the individual house) and level 4 cable networks, which are strictly separate entities, are converging. Most of level 3 is still owned by DTAG, although many different operators own a share of the level 4 network.