Cable needs consolidation
May 28, 2008
From Colin Mann in Cologne
The German cable industry is going through “seismic shifts” and will need to consolidate, according to Unitymedia Group CEO Parm Sandhu. Participating in the CEO Strategy Summit at the ANGA Cable Congress, he told delegates that the industry needed to face up to a very different reality.
“We're competing with companies on a global scale, such as Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica O2,” he said, suggesting that in such an environment, it would be very difficult for city networks such as NetCologne to survive as separate entities. He felt that the piecemeal sale of Deutsche Telekom's former cable networks had only produced two winners: Deutsche Telekom, which had enjoyed an effective DSL monopoly for much of the subsequent period, and commercial broadcasters, who were continuing to rely on outdated analogue distribution.