By Lisa Burroughes, 26 August 1999 13:26
NEWS Supermarket giant, Asda, has filed a complaint with Oftel over what it believes is anti-competitive behaviour by BT Cellnet and Vodafone. Both Asda and Tesco received notice from the mobile operators that they plan to increase the wholesale price of pre-pay mobile phones by 90 per cent. Tesco sparked a price war at the beginning of August when it slashed the prices of pre-paid phones from £79.99 to £49.99. It claims to have sold over 100,000 handsets since the move while Asda said it sells more than 4,000 every day. BT Cellnet said it has been forced to increase its charges because billable usage has been lower than expected and, when this is combined with increasing sales, means it is unable to recover costs. Both operators also said they are concerned that a Christmas sales boom would affect customer service quality.
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