The global minnow: telecoms.(Equant N.V., a small telephone company in the Netherlands, has challenged the notion that size is all important in the telecommunications field)(Brief Article)

Economist (US), The, August, 1998

THE received wisdom in global telecoms is that nothing matters more than size. When, a few weeks ago, AT&T and BT announced a joint venture aimed at supplying advanced data communications to multinationals, much of the trumpeting was about the scale and reach of the two telephone companies. That has also been the logic behind looser-knit alliances, such as Global One, a team that includes Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and Sprint, an American long-distance carrier.

But if it is really true that only three or four giants will be able to meet the communications needs of the world's biggest companies, how then to explain the success of Amsterdam-based Equant, a little-known tiddler that is making a splash in the market for managed data services? This year Equant,...

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