Double funk

An uber-mega value reader points me to some news from Friday which I would have expected to make some impact on the mainstream news wires by now, but curiously not yet. O2's German unit is to team up with WiMAX player DBD for a joint product called SmartDuo, pairing the WiMAX offering with O2's Genion product (which bills GSM calls at fixed line rates within a defined "home zone").

The 300k home coverage area reportedly in the pipeline for September of this year isn't huge, but it's certainly one more incremental source of pressure for DT both in mobile and broadband. The Flash graphics on the DBD site tell it all, with the mouse and the "handy" coming together to push the fixed phone into oblivion.

UK paper The Business last weekend added its voice to the growing chorus suggesting that DT is so frustrated by O2's performance in the mobile market that it may take O2 out. Genion is indeed a showpiece, accounting for more than 50% of O2's contract net adds (i.e., 450k) in the last financial year. Nevertheless, I don't buy the takeover story, on regulatory grounds alone.