People are being remarkably sanguine about the prospects of any alliance between Sprint Corp and France Telecom and Deutsche Bundespost Telekom winning US regulatory approval, but the fact that each is a state-owned monopoly alone is likely to be enough to cause big problems in Washington, before the regulators get around to the issue of […]
People are being remarkably sanguine about the prospects of any alliance between Sprint Corp and France Telecom and Deutsche Bundespost Telekom winning US regulatory approval, but the fact that each is a state-owned monopoly alone is likely to be enough to cause big problems in Washington, before the regulators get around to the issue of reciprocity in market openness, and given the delays in British Telecommunications Plc, operating in one of the few truly open markets in the world, winning approval for its alliance with MCI Communications Corp, all the evidence suggests that France and Germany will have to move a very long way to opening their markets before approval is granted; Sprint says the suggestion is that the French and German monopolies want to pay $4,000m for a 15% stake is wrong.