The ratings on Germany's largest telecommunications services provider Deutsche Telekom AG (DT) primarily reflect the group's solid business position in several markets, with operations that constitute a diversified base of free cash flow-generating businesses. The ratings also reflect the continued uptake of broadband in Germany, the pace of which is slowing, but where DT achieved a sizable 40% market share of net additions in the second quarter of 2008 (340,000 retail customers), a development that will help mitigate traditional line losses (653,000 net traditional line losses in the second quarter of 2008) and assist the group to retain its overall retail broadband market share of 46%. Growth in operational cash flows from mobile telephony, including the group's U.S. subsidiary T-Mobile
