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.