FRANKFURT, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom will not be able to cap Internet connection speeds whencustomers exceed data limits on flat-rate packages, a Germancourt ruled on Wednesday.
The district court of Cologne said the plans would place an"unreasonable disadvantage to the customers" as they count onInternet for a fixed price at stable connection speeds.
Earlier this year, Deutsche Telekom watered down plans tocap data speeds over fixed broadband lines following a publicoutrage.
It had said that, from 2016, customers who signed up forflat-rate Internet deal and who exceed their monthly datadownload limit would see their surfing speed capped at 2megabits per second (Mbit/s).
Deutsche Telekom customers in certain areas with glass fibrenetworks can get speeds of up to 200 Mbit/s, making the capequivalent to just 1 percent of what those customers had signedup for.
Although this was an improvement from earlier plans torestrict speeds to 384 kilobits per second, such a cap wouldstill lead to long waiting times to access websites and make italmost impossible to stream music and movies.
The case was brought to court by consumer lobby groupVerbraucherzentrale NRW, which said in a statement that afterthis ruling there was no legal basis for an Internet speed cap.
Deutsche Telekom said it would study the ruling and expectedto appeal it.
Germany's former telecom monopoly is in fierce competitionwith cable companies that have upgraded their lines designedoriginally to only deliver TV to homes so that they can alsocarry Internet and voice calls.
They offer Internet at speeds often five times faster thanthe competing services from telecom operators.
Earlier this month, Vodafone completed the 7.7billion euro acquisition of Kabel Deutschland, hopingto snatch some of Deutsche Telekom's 12.4 million broadbandcustomers, giving it a market share of more than 40 percent.
Vodafone (VOD)