MFS Communications, the corporate telecoms services arm of the US long-distance operator WorldCom, has unveiled plans to invest 175 million Ecu in the interconnection, by mid-1998, of the fibre-optic networks it has developed in major European cities, including Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Frankfort and London.

On top of this, MFS is co- financing with the UK operator Cable and Wireless (C&W) the development of a 400 million Ecu worth transatlantic cable. MFS is thus confirming its position as one of the major rival for European operators in the corporate communications market.

The European Commission is close to unveiling a plan to promote global cooperation on the legal and technical problems caused by the Internet explosion. The initiative, which has some computer and communications companies on edge, is the brainchild of German Commissioner Martin Bangemann, who first called for an "international charter for global communications" in a speech last September in Geneva. Companies which stand to profit from the growth in electronic commerce are waiting nervously, saying they welcome the effort to promote more cooperation but worry that the proposal could lead to unwelcome government intervention.

The German TV giants Bertelsmann and Kirch have suspended marketing operations involving their digital TV platform Premiere Digital and sales of the d-box decoder in response to European Commission warnings that this amounted to a partial implementation of the planned merger of the two firms' digital pay-TV operations ahead of official clearance, thus constituting a breach of European merger control rules.

The Armenian government has agreed to sell a 90% stake worth 123 million Ecu in the state-owned telecoms operator ArmenTel to the national Greek operator OTE. The move is part of OTE's development strategy in the Black Sea and Balkan regions, which includes a 20% stake in the Serbian operator Telecom Serbia and a joint venture with America's Hughes Network Systems to develop a telecoms network in Ukraine.

The French cable TV operator Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux said that it would not seek to establish a partnership to enter the French telecoms market in 1998. Lyonnaise intends to invest 30 million Ecu over five years to offer its 620,000 cable TV subscribers a large choice of new services, including telephony, digital TV and high-speed Internet access.

The incumbent French telecoms operator France Telecom said it has agreed to spend 410 million Ecu on buying Casema, the largest Dutch cable TV operator with 1.1 million subscribers, from its mother company, the incumbent Dutch telecoms operator KPN.

The French pay-TV giant Canal+ has announced the launch, before the end of 1998, of its second-generation digital set-top box, the Multimedia Home Platform. It would act as a single control interface for all household communication appliances (TV set, PC, fixed and mobile phones) and provide access to interactive services and the Internet. The new decoding box would be based on the universal programming language Java and the MHEG (Multimedia Home Expert Group) standard. Canal+ is also seeking official support from the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) project, a group set up in 1993 that brings together over 200 companies from relevant sectors.

The German government said that all of Germany's 44,000 schools would enjoy access to the Internet by the beginning of the 2001/1002 academic year. To meet this objective, the German state and the incumbent operator Deutsche Telekom agreed to extend their 29 million Ecu worth joint initiative, "Schulen an Netz," launched in 1996, and invest respectively an extra 20 million Ecu and 30 million Ecu

from 1999.

Next week: Japanese Market Monitor

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