Corporate | 23 July 2001 07:37

Telegate AG english

Corporate-News announcement sent by DGAP. The sender is solely responsible for the contents of this announcement. ——————————————————————————– Spain officially intends to open the market for directory inquiries services: Finally the number 11880 for telegate Munich, 23 July 2001, The Munich-based directory inquiries service, telegate AG, has received good news from abroad: the Spanish Ministry for Research and Technology has just published an outline for the liberalisation of the directory-inquiries market. This means that telegate now has good chances of obtaining the number 11880 in the coming months. As soon as this happens, the company will introduce its own branded service and quickly publicize it among the 16 million fixed-line subscribers and 25 million mobile-telephone users. For telegate, however, the approach of the Spanish Ministry is even more significant than this: the outline provides for the company to be given access to the data on all Spanish participants. Furthermore, Telefonica would be responsible for billing and collecting the fees due to telegate. In the past, the Spanish telecommunication giant had objected fiercely to providing this access. Until now, only the former monopolist Telefonica has been able to offer a directory-information service on the Iberian Peninsula under the short number 1003. This number has been THE number for directory inquiries in the minds of the Spanish people for decades. Accordingly, competitors now will have a fair chance because the government is allocating new numbers to all service providers. As in Germany, the 118xy route for directory-information services will be opened up in Spain over the coming months. The company with the best service and a clever marketing strategy will become Spains favourite number. Therefore, the initiative taken by the Spanish Ministry represents a big step forward for telegate. The current outline permits Telefonica to retain the number 1003 until there are signs of a positive development in the market. Given the German experience, however, telegate has good reason to assume that this period will be relatively short. Successful in Germany since 1996, telegate has had its own call center in Madrid since May 2000 and will begin promoting its service immediately after it has been awarded the new service. Financial information: telegate AG Wolfgang Brand Fraunhofer Str. 12a 82152 München-Martinsried Tel.: 089/ 8954-1120 Fax: 089/ 8954-1189 e-mail: wolfgang.brand@telegate.com Press information: telegate AG Anja Meyer Fraunhofer Str. 12a 82152 München-Martinsried Tel: 089/ 8954-1188 Fax: 089/ 8954-1189 e-mail: anja.meyer@telegate.com end of message, (c) DGAP 23.07.2001