By Graham Hayday, 3 December 2001 07:45
NEWS BT could be facing a serious monopoly investigation over its 192 directory enquiries service. Oftel will decide later this week if the company broke the law by increasing the fees it charges competitors to access the 192 database by 25 per cent. The move was made just days before the government announced the service would be opened up to competition. The price hike could deter some companies setting up rival offerings. Andy Holliday, UK MD of Telegate, a German company thinking of getting into directory services, told the Independent on Sunday: "The increases will penalise companies in our field. It will prevent the proper deregulation of the market." The database, known as Osis, is managed by BT's Directory Solutions division. Most of the data is supplied by BT Retail. According to the newspaper, Directory Solutions pays a fee to operators for supplying the data to Osis, and decided that the amount should increase from 13.9p an item to 66p - giving BT Retail a 375 per cent increase in its fee for supplying the data. BT denies the increase is designed to deter competition.
In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.
Log in or create your silicon.com account below