German firm moves in to UK directory enquiries

NEWS German company telegate is planning to move into the UK directory inquiries (DQ) market, which is officially opened to competition today. The company will open a call centre in Dumfries, creating 400 jobs. telegate hopes eventually to capture 25 per cent of the market - worth an estimated £250m a year. The centre will go live when technical changes to enable deregulation are finally in place, set to be around Q2 2002. telegate already covers a 30 per cent share of the German market, and is active in Italy. With an estimated 720 million calls per year, the UK market is estimated to be nearly twice the size of the German market. Oftel announced the plans for deregulation today, which it hopes will bring better, cheaper services with a greater range of options such as foreign languages and call connection. The old 192 number will be replaced with a selection of five digit numbers starting with 118. It has been possible to offer alternative directory enquiries services using premium-rate and other non-geographical numbers, but Oftel believes that the need to dial a ten-digit number is a barrier to entry.