T-Mobile Wins Major Corporate Supply Contract

Germany's railway network, Deutsche Bahn is to bundle all mobile communication services with T-Mobile in future. Deutsche Bahn and T-Mobile signed a framework agreement signifying the transfer of the mobile communication lines of around 40,000 employees in the Deutsche Bahn group to the new provider. Approximately 32,000 Deutsche Bahn lines are already provided by T-Mobile.

According to Stefan Garber, chief representative for technology and procurement at Deutsche Bahn, "Besides considerable cost savings, the bundling of our mobile communication activities promises above all to simplify business workflows, also with regard to billing modalities." The change-over of mobile communication voice cards, which involves allocating new mobile phone numbers, should be completed within only three months. Deutsche Bahn and T-Mobile will begin to realize the project as soon as mid-October.

Deutsche Bahn already uses T-Mobile mobile communication technology in various projects - for example, for its passenger information system (RIS). Today, over 15,000 mobile communication devices are already used by conductors and train drivers to ensure that operational data can be exchanged with transport management via RIS, thus improving customer information.

With its new mobile phone agreements, Deutsche Bahn is also giving its employees the opportunity to use company mobile communications devices for private purposes. Using the TwinBill function, it will be possible to bill business and private calls separately in future. This will reduce the burden on Deutsche Bahn's internal billing processes. For this purpose, employees will be given, alongside their business number, an additional T-Mobile number for private calls which will be billed directly to the user."

Posted to the site on 13th October 2003