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To: calaf who wrote (78945)	8/24/2000 8:25:33 AM
From: dwight martin	Respond to of 152472

DT Raises International Mobile Rates FRANKFURT, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG confirmed on Thursday it was raising its international mobile phone call charges but denied the rise was linked to high costs for gaining a new generation UMTS licence. A Telekom spokesman told Reuters that from September it would add a charge of 0.29 marks per minute for phone calls into 30 European countries. The calls could come via fixed-line or mobile phones. The spokesman said Telekom was raising its charges in response to price increases by its European competitors for connecting calls abroad from Telekom's network. ``The increase in the connection prices are European-wide and were not Telekom's idea,'' he said. By contrast, British Telecom Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BT.L) has also warned of high tariffs for users of third generation mobile phones, but pinned the blame on the high price paid for licences to operate those services. Germany's Focus magazine on Wednesday quoted Pat Gallagher, BT's group director of strategy and development, as saying the high investments in UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) would directly affect tariffs. ``We have to make up for the high costs somewhere. In the end we are not a welfare state,'' Gallagher said in a report on the magazine's web site. It was not immediately clear on Thursday how much Deutsche Telekom expected to raise from its extra charges. Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobil unit was one of six bidders which won German UMTS licences earlier this month, paying 16.7 billion euros for its licence after a 14-day auction. Telekom is also expected to reap further proceeds from the sale of German regional cable networks. Late on Wednesday the Finanical Times said Telekom was set to announce the sale of majority stakes in two of its cable networks. The FT, which gave no sources, said a 55 percent stake in a network in the Rhineland Palatinate, with about 1.5 million customers, would be sold to United Pan-Europe Communications (NasdaqNM:UPCOY - news). The second deal, involving the sale of a 75 percent stake in the company's Bavarian operations, with 2.5 million customers, would be with E-Cable, a venture led by Bayerische Landesbank and including Hypovereinsbank . The FT said that although financial terms would not be made public, the deals -- based on past transactions in the sector -- could have a value of 3.9-4.4 billion euros. http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000824/l24422300.html