After almost a decade, Deutsche Telekom is ending its flagging business with its range of mail communication with companies and authorities, the so-called De-Mail.

A spokesman said it had decided to discontinue its own De-Mail service.

The cancellation for private and business customers will be effective August 31, 2022.

De-Mail is about messages that are delivered with binding effect and are de facto equivalent to postal letters.

The channel can be used for tax assessments, pension applications and letters about waste fees or housing benefits.

A law from 2011 was the starting signal.

According to the specifications, telecommunications companies developed offers that should make visits to the authorities superfluous.

Although the federal government was interested in the system's success, many authorities were barely involved in De-Mail.

In February, Telekom boss Tim Höttges said: “We have invested a three-digit million sum, but there has never been anyone who has used this product because it was simply overcomplicated.” This is how Höttges called De-Mail a “dead horse”.

But the end of the mail is not its complete end: Telekom is talking to the other providers about whether data from Telekom customers can be transferred.

Jan Oetjen, managing director of WEB.DE and GMX, announced that he was convinced of the potential of De-Mail: “We are already in talks with Telekom and are examining the options and requirements, with the aim of meeting the customers of Telekom and T -Systems to make an offer for the uninterrupted continuation of their De-Mail accounts. "The state should finally make the standard available nationwide and digitize the official mail. According to the company, there are currently around 750,000 De-Mail accounts at WEB.DE and GMX. "We have been operating our platform cost-covering for years," announced the company.