Thursday December 18, 6:59 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Viatel, Inc.
Viatel Granted German Telephony Licenses
NEW YORK, Dec. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Viatel, Inc. (Nasdaq: VYTL - news), a facilities-based provider of national and international long-distance telecommunications services, announced today that it has been granted a Class 4 license to own and operate infrastructure and facilities in designated geographic areas within Germany and a Class 3 license to provide unrestricted public telecommunications services throughout the Federal Republic of Germany. The licenses, issued by the Federal Ministry for Post and Telecommunications, will become effective on January 1, 1998.
This follows an announcement earlier this week by Viatel of an interconnection agreement with Deutsche Telecom that will provide Viatel customers with the ability to seamlessly originate and terminate calls to any location served by DT's national telephone network, the largest and most ubiquitous in Germany. Interconnection is expected to become operational in January, 1998.
''We have now cleared the final regulatory hurdle to offering deregulated public telecom services in Germany, Western Europe's largest market,'' said Michael Mahoney, President & CEO of Viatel. ''We expect to aggressively compete in marketing Viatel's offerings to our target customer groups in business centers through the Republic, as a key part of our European strategy.''
Headquartered in New York, N.Y., Viatel is a facilities-based international and domestic long-distance telecommunications company with network points of presence in 30 European cities, and operations in the United States, Latin America and the Pacific Rim. The company offers a broad array of competitively priced, value-added international and domestic long-distance services. Its customers are primarily small and medium-sized businesses. Viatel provides long-distance service to more than 230 countries and territories worldwide through its international network.
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including the continued deregulation of the European Union member states in which the Company does business, the timely roll out of additional points of presence and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those contained in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 1996. As a result, actual results, events or conditions, financial or otherwise, could differ materially from those statements, Viatel undertakes no duty to update such forward-looking statements.
SOURCE: Viatel, Inc.
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