|
Telecommunication over fixed lines in Belgium Since januari 1st, 1998 the voice telephone market has been liberalised in Belgium.Until that date, Belgacom has had the monopoly in Belgium en has been building a network for years.
The
liberalising of this market, resulted in the fact that everyone can offer
voice services in BElgium since 1998. This was not possible to realise in
just a few months. They needed to build their network of cables and
establish a sales team. This takes a few years and is very expensive.
A complete own network seems not very nessecary to offer voice services.
The dominant operators have been obligated by Europe 'to let' their network
to concurrents. Customers of these alternative operators have to choose by
pressing a code, through which operator they want to make their phone calls.
This system is called Carrier
Select. (You select your carrier, by pressing it's code). But
pressing codes is no longer obligated with CPS, which is offered for
free by most operators. Here the code will be 'programmed'and you will
always call at the best rates.
Since
early 1998 we have a second operator for voice over fixed lines in Flanders:
Telenet
is using the current tv-cable network to offer voice services. By the end of
2000 , the network in Flanders was converted for 1,8 million residents (76 percent)
and 1,6 million families (66 percent) could already use the commercial
services of Telenet. Besides the voice services, Telenet also offers
internet service over it's cable network and for 2002 interactive digital
television will be available. |