FRANKFURT, Germany -- The German unit of America Online said on Friday that a Hamburg court granted its request for a temporary order blocking the country's biggest telephone company from cutting prices for its competing online service.
AOL (AOL) told the Hamburg district court that a new pricing plan by Deutsche Telekom, set to take effect 1 April, would stifle competition and give the phone company unfair advantages over online rivals.
Under the 1 April prices, users of Telekom's T-Online service would pay only 6 pfennigs per minute, or about 4 cents, for the service. The price would cover both the per-minute cost of access to T-Online and the per-minute charge for the local phone call.
To connect to AOL or other online services in Germany, users have to pay 8 pfennigs per minute in phone charges alone. They also pay monthly or per-minute fees to AOL or their Internet service providers.
AOL told the court that the new prices gave T-Online an unfair advantage because of Telekom's monopoly in local phone services.
Earlier AOL, seven other online services, and a group of computer users asked Germany's telecommunications regulator in a letter to stop Telekom from implementing the new T-Online prices.
The legal challenge from the online services is the latest in a growing list facing Telekom, Germany's former monopoly phone company. Several rival phone companies have complained to the European Union and German authorities, charging Telekom with abusing its monopoly power.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
