Subject:                 Data access

1) Lack of Level Playing Field

(a)          excessive and/or unexpected price changes;

The DWD notified us in early March that the prices for the data we buy will according to their new price list being effective since January 1st 2002. The new price list means a double (!) of the original price if we want to keep the amount of data and the same license rights we have now.

(b)         customers not treated equally (different prices for the same data);

We have knowledge that some customers, especially in the online business are treated by the DWD different than others. The DWD calls such unfair competition ´cooperations´, which have been set up with wetter.com (a daughter company of the struggling Kirch group) and wetterspiegel.de. The first mentioned company (wetter.com) is also providing services for nation-wide TV stations like ProSieben, Kabel 1 and N24. We still operate the teletext service for these stations but with the unfair treatment in respect of data prices it’s a matter of time when we are kicked out. The second company (wetterspiegel.de) mentioned to us that they have a new agreement with the DWD on radar images and that they get the data much cheaper because of a ´cooperation´.

(c)          access to data known to exist being restricted;

For years access to road measurement sites was restricted to us. Only an intervention on the governmental level made it possible to get access to the data. A similar case happened with precise eye-observations which are used by the DWD for expert opinion. First they made it available to us, then a local branch of the DWD tried to hide it again and only high-level intervention made it possible to continue the reception of these data.

Additionally, some important information related to data, for examples changes in the model configuration, changes of measurement details or new developments in this area seem to be located in the Intranet of the DWD but not made available to the public.

(d)         corrupt and inappropriate data being distributed.

The hourly observations (SYNOP) are received within the DWD approx. 10 minutes before the hour. We receive these data at the earliest 2-4 minutes past the hour. This gives the DWD an advance of 12-14 minutes to prepare their products and to deliver them to their customers.

2) Anti-Competitive Behavior in the Marketplace

(a)          price dumping;

The prices for media services including radio interviews and TV presentations are far below the price, which is paid normally for such services. Additionally the market for newspaper services is completely wrecked because of price dumping by the DWD.

We have one particular case of price dumping documented. In late Summer 2001 the DEGES, a state-owned but legally independent construction planning company asked us for an offer for an expert opinion on drifting snow for a certain mountainous area in Germany. We considered the amount of work with hiring an expert on drifting snow, having on-site measurements, etc and came to a price of  23.008 € for our service. The DWD offered the service for a price of 0 € (zero Euro!).

Additionally we find many cases within the forecast services market (Energy, Agriculture, Winter Road Maintenance) where the DWD offers their services below the value of the product and most often below the internal costs of the product. Because of the lack of transparency this is hard to prove, though.

(b)         other unfair business practices

The DWD advertises their expert opinion with being “official” (German: Amtliches Gutachten). This gives the impression that other companies are not allowed to produce expert opinions in the meteorological field or that these are not accepted by a court.

Furthermore the commercial branch of the DWD has access to the complete historical database. This is especially important for providing services for the emerging weather derivates market. For monthly new additions to their historical database there is now a price tag but the commercial branch has never paid for access to the data gathered before there were separate bookkeeping within the DWD. For entering such a market an independent company would need to invest millions of Euro, which is not necessary for the NMS.

Furthermore the DWD is not yet paying taxes on revenue or profit, nor is it paying interest for money being made available. Additionally the commercial branch of the DWD has the goal to have a cost coverage but no real business goal to make profit and to grow. This has a large influence on the calculation of prices.