Comments on Günter Knieps, “Telecommunications Policy - Assessing Recent Experience in the US, Japan and Europe and Its Implications for the Completion of the Internal Common Market”

The German Government Commission for restructuring the telecommunications system consisted of 12 people. If the networks and the telephone service remain a public monopoly, as has been proposed by the Commission, 90% of the telecommunications sector - in terms of the Deutsche Bundespost's proceeds - will continue to be protected from competition. The concept of competition has been chosen by the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom, whose share in the telecommunications' market amounts to over 50% of the world market. There was no discussion on the privatisation of German telecommunications because this would not have been in line with the German Constitution and the mandate of the Commission. In the United States, AT&T pays more than 50% of its costs in the form of access charges to the Bell Operating Companies, under strict regulation by the US Federal Communications Commission, to obtain access to, and to compensate distribution of its services via the local network infrastructure.