Deutsche Telekom reported Wednesday it managed to slightly increase bottom-line earnings in the first quarter of 2013. The Bonn-based company said it logged a net profit of 564 million euros ($738 million) in the first three months of the year, up 3.5 percent year-on-year.

The rise in profit came despite a 4.5-percent decline in revenues totaling 13.7 billion euros. The former monopolist lost another one million landline phone subscribers. The overall number of Telekom's landline contracts was down to 12.4 million, the firm said.

Deutsche Telekom stated the recent merger between its subsidiary T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS had had a positive impact on earnings. It said that in the past four weeks alone it had sold half a million iPhones in the US.

Fiery debate

The announcement of first-quarter results came as public criticism was widening in Germany of Deutsche Telekom's plan to introduce data throttling for high-speed internet contracts in Germany as of 2016.

At a national re:publica conference of internet pundits and bloggers in Berlin, co-founder Markus Beckedahl called on the government to intervene and prevent the company from implementing its scheme to limit broadband speed after a monthly volume was reached.

Re:publica activists said they feared the internet community could be split into two classes. They said net neutrality was at stake.

Telekom's Jan Krancke said at the gathering in Berlin that only a few percent of the 11.5 million broadband users would be affected by data throttling. He called it "a matter of justice" to limit broadband speed for those using the internet excessively. Users can prevent throttling by subscribing to Telekom's more expensive entertainment packages such as "Entertain" or "Managed Services".

hg/msh (dpa, AFP)