Foundation

134World2000 Germany. The other major incumbents are far behind: France Telecom's DSL lines number only 80,000,although the numbers are growing, and it is expected that by the end of this year 50% of their subscriberpopulation will be covered. Faced with the risk of seeing the DSL market controlled by dominant operators,the year 2000 in Europe was above all marked by debates over unbundling. Contrary to the North Americansituation, and with the exception of Germany and the Netherlands, national legislation ratified for telecomsderegulation in January '98, did not include unbundling rules. Lastly, it was only at the end of the year thatEuropean regulation rendering this principle mandatory by 1 January, 2001 was handed down.ConclusionIt is without a doubt that, prior to 2000, the telecoms sector had never found itself in the headlines to thisextent. After having begun on a basis which remained largely national, deregulation of the European marketsgave rise to the emergence, in a matter of months, to those players who could lay claim to a truly pan-European, if not global, dimension.In Europe, mobile continued to by the prime vector of this dynamic. Think only of the exceptional path takenby Vodafone (1) !Overall, however, this came about with considerable risk being taken by the players, taking into account thecost of this internationalisation, the cost of UMTS licences and networks, and the only gradually increasingearnings from mobile Internet. Marked by an, albeit expected but nevertheless brutal plunge in market ratings,the year also reflected the increasingly central role of financial markets and banking establishments.Europe thus finds itself plunged into a delicate phase where it will have to prove its ability to maintain itsleadership in the field of mobiles and to manage the players' consolidation trends — which remain lesssignificant than in the US (2) — without hindering competition.The year in the United States was marked by the opposite phenomenon, in the hands of regulatory bodiesruling on two major mergers: WorldCom's takeover of Sprint, and AOL's takeover of Time Warner. It is thefinancial markets, however which, it appears, put an end to AT&T's dreams of convergence. Even the grandlaunch of high-speed access fed analysts' doubts about the business models' maturity.On both sides of the Atlantic, then, the consequences of growth which were supposed to allow free reigningcompetition for the benefit of both the heavyweights and their rivals, appear much more complex to implementthan initially anticipated.Lastly, the only certainty which remains is that, confronted with their lowering margins and the risks inherentin new services and networks, operators will continue to radically re-paint the sector's landscape in the yearto come. It is still anyone's game, even from a strategic standpoint. In light of strategies of specialisation (eithergeographically or in terms of operation), convergence strategies will no doubt continue to proliferate with thegoal of gaining control over the various user access platforms, as will disputes over the value of theapplications they support.(1) And the total growth of mobile subscribers in Western Europe during 2000: + 80 millions!(2) See "The merger and acquisition frenzy".© IDATE www.idate.fr