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By Lisa Burroughes, 16 December 1999 00:25

NEWS KPNQwest is to roll out DSL (digital subscriber line) for businesses in nine European countries - with Germany being the first to get services by mid 2000. The pan-European telco will provide the high-speed broadband Internet access through its own fibre optic network in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Sweden and the UK. Germany is first on the list because the incumbent telco, Deutsche Telekom, is now legally obliged to allow other operators access to its local loop. But businesses in the UK may have to wait up to two years before they are offered the same service by KPNQwest - as the local loop won't be unbundled until July 2001. Jack McMaster, CEO and president of KPNQwest said: "We will prioritise the roll out in cities in Europe based upon the pace of deregulation, because the speed of rollout will depend on the unbundling of the local loop." He added that Austria, Norway and Finland will all follow Germany in the next year. Keith Mallinson, managing director of Yankee Group Europe argued that this will not necessarily give German businesses an advantage. "The earlier rollout in Germany could put it ahead in terms of ecommerce. But DSL is not necessarily the panacea that every one makes out. It is not an easy technology and if Deutsche Telekom doesn't want to play ball, it will be very difficult for KPNQwest," he said. Operators will be able to buy DSL services wholesale from BT from March. DSL will be available for its existing corporate customers as well as small- and medium-sized businesses - a previously untargeted market for KPNQwest. According to Tim Johnson, analyst at Ovum, SMEs will soon feature more strongly in telcos' strategies. "There has been a bandwidth explosion and this has left the operators needing to drive traffic over their networks. By offering DSL to SME's, KPNQwest is tackling this problem and we are likely to see a lot of other operators doing the same thing," Johnson said.