Major Telecom Fined 63 Million for Anti-Competitive Practices

Many in North America often point to lack of competition as a reason why internet and cell phone services are either not that great or a complete rip-off. That might be why this case regarding two French telecoms might be of interest to some who are concerned that the telecom competition in a given area isn’t exactly competitive at all.

According to French news site 01Net (Google translated), French telecom giants France Télécom and Orange have been fined 63 million euros by French regulators for anti-competitive practises.

While the telecoms are from France, they were operating in the West Indies and Guiana. From the translated article:

“Entry by Bouygues Telecom Caraibe Outremer Telecom by then, the Authority (…) sanctions Orange and France Telecom Caribbean (…) to have implemented anti-competitive practices on the market for mobile or fixed telephony to mobiles in the West Indies and Guiana, “she said in a statement.

In the latter, the Authority referred to several cases as “practices of abusive pricing differentiation between calls” on net “(to network) and calls” off-net “(network to a competitor), exclusivity concluded with the sole repairer of terminals in the Caribbean, preventing any new operator to offer its customers a local service support or exclusive agreements with independent distributors, significantly limiting the ability to commercialize any new operator.

The telecoms are appealing the decision saying that just because they have 75% of the market share doesn’t mean that they have a monopoly.

Now one might wonder how many areas are there in the United States where it seems like there is only one telecom provider. Are there areas where a telecom giant has more than 75% of the market share? Granted, comparing a US marketplace to countries to the South of Mexico gets rather complicated, but it can make you wonder about other cases where regulators cracked down on telecom monopolies and if telecom giants in Canada and the United States have, in terms of being able to excercise monopolistic-like power, enjoyed a free ride or not.

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