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Orange Files Lawsuit Against Swisscom for Market Position Abuse
Published on:
ZURICH -(Dow Jones)- Orange, the Swiss mobile phone subsidiary of France Telecom, Thursday said it has filed a lawsuit with the Swiss competition authority versus Swisscom.
Orange says a new broadband internet plus mobile telephone bundle offered by the incumbent is an abuse of its market position.
Swisscom in August launched an offer where its customers no longer have to pay the CHF25.25 base fee for the fixed line connection if they take a bundled offering of mobile telephone and broadband, without using a fixed line phone. In the past, customers still had to pay that fee in order to have a broadband connection.
Alternative operators cannot match this offer, Orange says.
"Swisscom's bundle offer clearly shows how it is abusing its dominant position in the marketplace," the company said. "With its existing offer and announced future wholesale project, Swisscom is attempting to squeeze out competition by preventing competitors from establishing comparable offers without having to bear substantial subsidises."
Orange says the former monopolist refused to provide a similar favorable wholesale offer for mobile phone/ADSL, which would allow it to continue to compete.
Orange demands, in particular, that Swisscom must "immediately" offer according reselling conditions.
The complaint comes several weeks after Sunrise, the Swiss mobile operator of Denmark's Tdc lodged a similar complaint.
Swisscom spokesman Carsten Roetz said Swisscom isn't too worried about the complaints. "We looked very carefully at the legal implications before launching the offer and we feel it's fair."
He said that before, customers could already get a similar product through Cablecom Holdings AG, and Swisscom is primarily interested in not losing its customers.
-By Hans Schoemaker, Dow Jones Newswires; +41-43-4438045; hans.schoemaker@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
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