D.Telekom to speed up line access for rivals

KOENIGSWINTER, Germany, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) said it was speeding up efforts to reduce a backlog on DSL line access for competitors who rent connections into private homes and businesses from the German company.

"We will be up to 330,000 switch orders per month by April 1 at the latest," said Timotheus Hoettges, responsible for fixed-line and DSL business on Deutsche Telekom's board.

Rivals such as Telefonica (TEF.MC) and Vodafone (VOD.L) had filed a complaint at the end of 2007 with Germany's telecom watchdog over delays in switching on Internet access they said were caused by Deutsche Telekom.

They argued it takes weeks instead of days for Deutsche Telekom to enable DSL access, undercutting their competitiveness.

Germany's telecom regulator has ordered Deutsche Telekom to make up to a million connections available in a quarter. The company will have to pay a penalty of 4 euros per day for each line of access it fails to provide. In return competitors will have to compensate Deutsche Telekom if they request but do not use any connections.

Telefonica's O2 Germany, Vodafone's German unit Arcor and Telecom Italia's (TLIT.MI) Hansenet are among those that offer their customers DSL broadband connections by leasing Deutsche Telekom's wires from telephone exchanges into homes or offices, the so-called "last mile".

Hoettges said strong growth in DSL last year had resulted in the backlog as competitors demanded more Internet access than they had first requested.

"We have switched on 26 percent more connections than planned, but some carriers had demanded 100 to 150 percent more than the contingent they originally requested," Hoettges said, adding that the former state monopoly had hired external companies to help reduce the backlog. (Reporting by Nicola Leske, editing by Will Waterman)