FRANKFURT, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom AG has proposed a new later start date to the German government for launching a road toll system, the German transport ministry said on Tuesday.
In a letter to the transport ministry, Telekom said the government could start charging a toll from the fourth quarter of 2004 or at the latest the first quarter of 2005, which the ministry said was later than had been negotiated up to now.
Should the toll system not be ready by December 31, 2004, Telekom would be willing to pay a fine of up to 500 million euros ($619.7 million), it said in the letter.
Newspaper Die Welt said in an article to be published on Wednesday that Telekom made the proposal to the transport ministry alone, without its Toll Collect consortium partner DaimlerChrysler
A spokesman for Deutsche Telekom confirmed that the company had written to the transport ministry, but declined to discuss the contents of the letter.
A spokesman for the Toll Collect consortium declined to comment on the letter, which was not written by Toll Collect.
The consortium, made up of Deutsche Telekom, DaimlerChrysler and France's Cofiroute , has come under increasing pressure over repeated delays to the launch of its technologically pioneering road toll system.
The system, with ground-breaking satellite-based tracking technology, was originally due to start on August 31 but its roll-out has been delayed due to technical problems and was not expected to start before at least mid-2004.
Germany has billed the consortium 1.3 billion euros in lost revenues and other fines, but the consortium partners say there are no grounds for paying damages.
Under the toll system, Germany aims to charge 12-tonne trucks 12.4 euro cents per kilometre across its highway network, the most heavily used in Europe.
The system is set to raise 2.8 billion euros per year, with 2.1 billion of that flowing into state coffers.