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One of Europe's newest X.400 service providers, Ursa Major International, has made a formal complaint to the European Commission, arguing that other, more established, X.400 service providers, are being unnecessarily slow and difficult in agreeing and implementing inter-connection agreements. UMI has complained that the delays it has experienced are harmful to its business and reduce the choice available to customers.
Ursa Major International Ltd. (UMI) was founded 1993 in Denmark by a group of international experts in the field of electronic messaging and data interchange with the objective of providing 1988/1992 X.400-compliant and related services to the public in Europe. In 1995 UMI moved its operation to Vienna, Austria and is registered there today as Ursa Major International Kommunikationsservice Ges.m.b.H.'
UMI offers the product UMI 400, which comprises several value-added telecommunication services, especially electronic messaging. UMI 400 services are exclusively sold through independent UMI partners (currently present in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland) which are operating public X.400 ADMDs, using a common pricing policy and the same technology.
UMI is the supervising authority of all the UMI service providers and its main tasks consist of administration, logistics and marketing as well as the extension of the UMI network.
UMI Secretary General Tomislav Micic spoke with Briefing about the current frustration the UMI partners are feeling. " MoU', ONP-Guidelines, EEMA's Draft Interconnection agreement - these are all worthy and just some of the measures and guidelines which have been taken by several organisations and associations to expedite the interconnectivity of ADMD operators.
Home country problems
"But how does the actual situation look? At present no Austrian, no Danish and
no Swiss UMI customer is able to reach clients of the local PTT (for example:
ADA, DK400, ARCOM, 400NET). We have not been able to formalise inter-connection
agreements with these operators and the situation has not changed since we were
founded in 1993," explains Mr Micic.
From UMI's point of view this kind of competitive position is against the spirit and vision of X.400 as an open and international messaging service standard and seems to be purely political - trying to avoid competition with other ADMDs.
For UMI, according to Mr Micic, the only way to change this "unbearable state" was a complaint to the European Commission (DG IV-Competition). Since May 8, 1995 the complaint has been registered in Brussels under the file number IV / 35569 and UMI is expecting a decision from the European Commission soon.
Briefing asked Mustafa Munur, Chairman of the Commercial Service Providers Committee of EEMA and a principal consultant with GE Information Services in Switzerland, to give his view of the current position. "We, the members of CSPC within EEMA, represent all of Europe's ADMD service providers and are all in favour of an international messaging infrastructure that is open, fully interconnected but secure.
Commercial issue
The issue is mainly a commercial one. "Establishing an interconnect, like
anything else, costs money both in terms of time and resources. Wherever the
benefits to both parties justify this initial investment and its repercussions,
the interconnection almost certainly has already been established. We have made
a lot of progress over the last years. The ADMD Interconnection matrix -
sponsored by the Commercial Service Providers Committee (CSPC) - and published
six times a year in the Briefing, testifies to that. Unfortunately, the matrix
has its short-comings in that it does not show the number of users who are
actually interconnected versus those who are still experiencing problems across
some routes. It is widely accepted that more than 90% of ADMD users who wish to
exchange messages with other ADMD users, can do so without any problems.
Obviously, this is not enough.
"I understand the frustrations expressed by UMI. However, the issues need to be tackled at the micro level (for example, inter-ADMD accounting arrangements, interconnect agreements, service level agreements, transits, etc.). CSPC represents the only forum in Europe where these issues can be discussed and progressed," said Mustafa.
Competitive environment
"Almost all the ADMDs in Europe are represented in this forum and the European
Commission regularly sends an observer and provides us with guidance when
needed. We are actively inviting representatives of all the ADMDs and other CSPs
to come and join us, so that the issues can be resolved," said Mustafa, and
concluded: "Peter Sattler attended one of our meetings (Vienna; 2.3.94). I
remember his impressive presentation well. However, we have no record of any
specific proposal that was made on how to move things forward. It should be
remembered that messaging is global and that the parties involved are
competitors!"