Český Telecom abused its dominant position on the ADSL market
„The company prevented by its conduct the alternative operators from offering the competitive services on the retail ADSL market for appreciable period,“ stated Mr. Pecina.
Company ČTc made public a new structure of its services provided on the market for mediation of access to the Internet services and for transmission of data by using the broad - band xDSL technologies (ADSL) at a press conference held on 26th November 2003. These services were intended to substitute the services provided through the company´s section „Internet On Line“ from 1 January 2004 and on the same day (i.e. on 26 November 2003) the company also made public the change of its wholesale offer on the basis of which the end - customers are provided with ADSL services by other operators. By making both the offers public on the same day ČTc failed to provide the other operators with a time period sufficient for assessing the wholesale offer in such a way that these operators could enter into negotiation with ČTc about the new form of ADSL services and enter into an agreement with ČTc that would have made provision of these services possible. By means of such a conduct, ČTc prevented the other alternative operators from offering ADSL services to the end - customers on comparable conditions. It has to be pointed out that alternative operators are not able to provide ADSL services without the access to the infrastructure possessed by ČTc. Due to this fact ČTc gained a considerable competitive advantage and caused damage to other competitors.
The Chairman reduced the original first-instance fine (90 mil. CZK) in this case by 10 million CZK due to the fact, that damage caused to the end-customers was not proven sufficiently. In addition, the fine should have been calculated regardless of the procedural infringements of ČTc.
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