European Regulators Could Investigate Five Major Mobile Networks

Five of Europe’s biggest mobile phone network operators were questioned this week over possible breaches of competition regulations.

Vodafone, France Telecoms, Telecom Italia, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and the mobile industry’s trade group GSMA all received questions from the European Competition Commission (ECC) over strategy meetings that took place in 2010.

Keeping secrets

The questions relate to the occasional meetings in which top executives from five companies discussed the future standards in wireless communication, possibly LTE.

One person close to the situation expressed surprise at the inquiry given the presence of a lawyer at each meeting, and notes sent to the European authorities about the content of the discussions, reports Financial Times.

“The Commission can confirm that it has requested information from five large telecom operators (Deutsche Telekom, FranceTélécom, Telefónica, Vodafone and Telecom Italia) and from the GSMA, the mobile operators’ association. The requests for information relate to the manner in which standardisation for future services in the mobile communications area is taking place,” a spokeswoman for the ECC told TechWeekEurope.

“The Commission has not opened formal proceedings. These fact-finding steps do not mean that we have competition concerns at this stage, nor do they prejudge the follow-up. This is all we can say at this point,” she added.

Although ECC is threading carefully at this point, it wouldn’t stir the hornet’s nest unless there was serious concern (or a whistleblower) in Brussels, and a lengthy formal investigation may follow soon.

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