If implemented, BT would have to backdate the refund to December 2001, the date from when the additional call routing and call management measures were no longer needed. The action follows an investigation prompted by complaints from Cable & Wireless and Energis.
David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications said today:
"When Oftel required BT to introduce a wholesale unmetered internet access product, BT introduced a number of additional measures to support the new service and which were included in the charge to other operators.
"These covered procedures to route Internet calls through to the appropriate service provider and call management measures to protect BT's network from being overloaded by unmetered internet traffic. BT has since made a number of improvements to its network, which means the internet calls traffic can be processed without the additional measures."
Edmonds added that these savings could be passed on by other operators to their customers.