AOL France to challenge Wanadoo over ‘predatory pricing’

Broadband tiffs

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 6th January 2004 21:45 GMT

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AOL France is to complain to French competition authorities over allegations that France Telecom's Wanadoo ISP is engaged in predatory pricing.

Le Figaro quotes, (by way of AFX) AOL France boss Stephane Treppoz as saying that Wanadoo is flogging broadband at a price lower than the wholesale cost of the service.

An AOL spokesman confirmed the story and told The Register: "We want the regulator to take immediate action."

Meanwhile, AOL's challenge to the relationship between incumbent telco, France Telecom, and its ISP, Wanadoo, does seem bear some curious similarities to events in the UK.

In this case, though, it's Wanadoo UK (better known as Freeserve) challenging the role of the incumbent (BT) over its dominance of the UK broadband market.

So much so, on Friday, Freeserve confirmed that it would launch yet another legal challenge to try and prove that BT was involved in predatory pricing more than 18 months ago.

Hypocritical? Not at all, said a senior source at Freeserve.

Instead, he explained that the actions in France and the UK merely highlighted the inconsistencies of telecoms regulators in different European countries. ®

Freeserve to continue BT 'predatory pricing' fight

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