Birgit Godehardt, Norbert Wißing, Matthias-W. Stoetzer
Stand und Perspektiven von Corporate Networks in deutschen Unternehmen
Nr. 156 / Dezember 1995
Summary
With the deregulation of telecommunications in Germany, that began in 1989, it beca-me possible to connect individual private branch exchanges (PBX) and computers into enterprise-wide private networks for voice and data transmission (corporate networks). However, because of the remaining monopoly for voice transmission for third parties, the development of private voice networks was limited to company-owned sites until the end of 1992. The „Corporate Network“ guidelines, that were released January 1, 1993, now provide the legal basis for voice communication in private networks used by combined enterprises and closed user groups and, thus, have created a liberal environment to build corporate networks in Germany.
In November 1994, WIK commissioned ExperTeam, Düsseldorf, to carry out an empirical investigation regarding the current status and perspectives of Corporate Networks in Germany. Within the framework of that study, approximately 400 companies and experts in Germany were interviewed.
Two years after the complete liberalisation of voice telephony inside companies this study aims at analyzing the resulting changes on the demand side, i.e. the enterprises using corporate networks. The empirical results show that corporate networks are rather widespread in use among companies. This holds true not only for the large firms but also for medium sized enterprises. In order to build up corporate networks mainly leased lines and network management services of Deutsche Telekom are used. The investigation also reveals that the acceptance of private carriers will rise in the future. The advantages of corporate networks for the companies are above all the possibility to decrease costs for telecommunications services. Qualitative and organisational as-pects, like e.g. the possibility to create virtual enterprises only have a limited impact on the decision to run or buy corporate network services.
Only German language version available.