European telecoms - Swamp things - How Europe's struggling telecoms incumbents compare
Sep 21st 2006
From The Economist print edition

THEY once strode the world as giants, bearing the names of the countries from which they sprang. But eight years after their industry was liberalised and five years after a financial crisis that brought some close to collapse, Europe's big telecoms incumbents face troubled times. The crisis is most apparent at Telecom Italia: its chairman, Marco Tronchetti Provera, resigned last week after falling out with the government over his plans to restructure the debt-laden company. He was motivated in part by a desire to raise money for the rest of his ailing business empire. But Telecom Italia's woes—slowing growth in mobile telephony, a decline in core fixed-line revenues, a growing threat from upstart competitors, huge debts and government intrusion—are common to its dinosaur-like peers in other European countries.

Full Article on Economist.com