One down four to go: T-Online board member quits

Ralf Eck, head of product marketing at T-Online, resigned from the board citing personal reasons.

Hans Ehnert, spokesman at Deutsche Telekom said the German ISP has already found a replacement for Eck from within the company.

The replacement, Burkhard Grassmann, is currently head of centralised communications at Deutsche Telekom and will replace Eck until the next T-Online board meeting.

Robin Duke-Woolley, principal consultant at Schema, said it is possible some truth could exist behind the rumour the entire board could be on its way.

He said: "The drop in price stock is interesting considering that technology stocks have been up and down continually. A possible disagreement between the two boards due to lack of funding could be the reason".

Deutsche Telekom has already been placed on 'credit watch' by Standard & Poores, the credit rating agency following the $50bn spent on acquiring VoiceStream in the US and the $7bn UTMS license in Germany.

Duke-Woolley said: "T-Online may want to expand and Deutsche Telekom may not be providing the backing required due to the fact that its debts are getting quite high. Deutsche Telekom may want to conserve its funds for its debt problems".

Duke-Woolley said the collapse of the FreeServe deal could be testament to the lack of backing T-Online wants to expand.

Shares in T-Online reached a low of E25.45, the lowest since its list price of E27 in April.