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To: KyrosL who wrote (37499)	8/2/1999 2:47:00 PM
From: Michael	Respond to of 152472

Is Global One , a CDMA backer? Monday August 2 2:02 PM ET EU Ready To Grant Global One More Freedom By Amelia Torres BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission is ready to grant greater freedom to Global One, the ailing joint venture between Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom (NYSE:FTE - news) and Sprint Corp (NYSE:FON - news), to compete on the telecommunications market, it said in a statement published Monday. The Commission said in a notice published in the EU's Official Journal that it intended to allow Global One to provide traditional voice telephony services and to authorize its European parent companies to bundle the venture's services with their own. Global One's future has become uncertain since relations between the former German and French telecoms monopolies were soured by Telekom's attempt to team up with rival Telecom Italia. The Italo-German planned merger fell through, but France Telecom says that its cooperation with the German company is over. The Commission, the EU's anti-trust authority, said that Global One asked it on March 25 to relax some conditions imposed on the venture in 1996 which prevent it from competing head on with the powerful global alliance between British Telecommunications Plc and AT&T Corp (NYSE:T -news) and others. The request was filed before Telecom Italia tentatively agreed a merger with Telekom to fend off a hostile, but ultimately successful bid by Olivetti. ''The Commission intends to take a favorable view on the notified (request),'' the EU executive said in the notice. The Commission said it was no longer justified to clip Global One's wings since the European telecoms market now enjoys full competition and serious rivals have emerged. It noted that the BT/AT&T venture, which received EU regulatory approval earlier this year, was ''expected to have revenues 10 times that of Global One.'' Other large competitors included MCI WorldCom, Unisource and the planned merger between Telia and Telenor in the Nordic region. Global One was created in 1996 by Atlas, itself a 50/50 joint venture between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, and Sprint. It currently offers mainly data transmission services to large global telecoms users although it already has minor voice telephony operations in Sweden and Britain. The required changes would allow the company based in Brussels to provide all telecoms services in the EU market valued at 96.2 billion euros ($102.5 billion) in 1998, the Commission said. It would also provide on an agent or reseller basis all voice and data services offered by its European parents. More significantly, Global One would be able to offer so-called customized packages of corporate telecoms services, a market it estimates at 7.4 billion euros in the European Economic Area -- the EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, the notice added. Global One estimates it has five percent of that market and sees its market share unchanged in 1999. The Commission had announced in March, when it cleared the BT/AT&T deal, that it was considering lifting the conditions attached to Global One. It gave interested parties a month to comment before taking a final decision.