By Julian Goldsmith, 7 December 1998 00:25
NEWS A court battle between Oftel and mobile operator, One2One has ended with a cave-in by the regulator. The carrier had protested in the High Court that Oftel's intention to give rivals access to key elements of a report, submitted to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) on Friday, was anti-competitive. As Cellnet, Vodafone and BT were subjects of the MMC's investigation into mobile operators' charges for terminating fixed line callers, they were legally entitled to see the report as soon as it was published. One2One would have had to wait until January for the report to be released into the public domain. It complained that this would give Vodafone and Cellnet an early lead in reacting to any changes in mobile tariffs. Now, the regulator has agreed to make key points in the report available to the public on 15 December. Cellnet, BT and Vodafone will receive the information the preceding evening. In a prepared statement, Robin Saphra, One2One public policy director, said: "Throughout discussions with Oftel, our primary concern has been to ensure that we were not disadvantaged because our larger competitors have early access to information which may well change the shape of the mobile market." Sophra's sentiments were echoed by Parantha Narendran, consultant at research house, Ovum. "If Oftel were only going to reveal the details of the report to Cellnet and Vodafone, the other operators would be left in the dark about something which could affect them - possibly badly," he said. "In fact this report could affect other mobile operators throughout Europe, as many other countries' regulators look to the UK as a benchmark."
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