Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Fixed-Mobile Substitution in Germany

The Wall Street Journal reported today about the continued management shake-up at Deutsche Telekom.

For those following at home, last month Kai-Uwe Ricke who ran all of DT was replaced by Rene Obermann, previously the head of T-Mobile.

In today’s announcement, Hamid Akhavan, formerly the CTO of T-Mobile, will now head the division. Robert Dotson, CEO of T-Mobile US, will now report directly to DT’s executive board, a move designed to raise the visibility of the unit.

And most interesting, Timotheus Hottges, who was the sales and services executive at T-Mobile, succeeds Walter Raizner as the CEO of T-Com, the fixed line unit of DT. Interesting, now DT is lead by mobile-raised executives.



FMC means a lot of things, but one dimension is politically how the fixed unit and mobile units of an integrated operator converge. It seems obvious, but the consumer brands of these company’s is moving from fixed to mobile (witness Orange over France Telecom). DT’s announcements serve to highlight that now, at least in Germany, the future is mobile.

Given that UMA is for mobile operator and the mobile side of an integrated operator, this continues to be good news.

VCC, of course, is fixed-line operator-centric, and continues to face an uphill battle in the continuing FMC debates.

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