In a decision released on Sunday, Oftel allowed BT to charge
customers for its own broadband service by adding the charges to
customers’ existing phone bills.
Freeserve, the UK’s largest ISP, interprets this decision as
Oftel handing BT a significant competitive advantage and accuses
the regulator of burying the announcement in PR-spin. It issued the
following complaint:
"Under physical separation rules, BT is
already prevented from using customer information to market its own
Internet access services. Oftel has used this piece of old news to
bury in its press release the fact that it has gifted to BT the
anti-competitive advantage of using its blue bill to charge for its
own broadband service.
"This fait accompli has been achieved
without any industry consultation and with no apparent safeguards
in place. The blue bill, which supports BT's near-monopoly fixed
line phone business, is a privilege of BT and BT alone. This is a
clear example of BT being allowed by the regulator to leverage a
dominant market position in fixed line telephony to establish a
position in broadband."
Oftel has denied “burying” the news.
