FRANKFURT, Germany, April 26 (UPI) -- Deutsche Telekom was given the go-ahead to acquire Austria's tele.ring Telekom Service.
The European Commission and the Austrian Telekom-Control Commission approved the deal whereby T-Mobile Austria, which is part of the Deutsche Telekom group, will buy out Austria's fourth-largest mobile provider.
"This provides all parties with clarity for planning the future development of the business -- the teams in Austria will immediately focus on merging the operations of the two companies. The takeover of tele.ring by T-Mobile Austria brings together two highly successful companies with more than three million customers. The combination of the strengths of the two operations, in aggressive price offers and top quality of service, combined with high-quality products," T-Mobile Chief Executive Rene Obermann said in a news release.
T-Mobile Austria concluded an agreement in August 2005 with the Western Wireless International Austria Corporation, a subsidiary of the Alltel Corporation, USA, for the complete takeover of tele.ring.
The European Commission and the TCC made their approval of the takeover of tele.ring subject to several conditions. For example, T-Mobile Austria will hand over to competitors those mobile communications base stations it acquires in the course of the takeover but does not need, along with both the UMTS mobile communications frequencies that tele.ring has been using to date.
