BT Cellnet attacks "unreasonable" Oftel

BT Cellnet has hit out at claims by UK regulator Oftel that its mobile phone network is anti-competitive.

It says any imbalance in the mobile phone market is due to excessive regulatory assistance to One2One and Orange.

BT Cellnet stands accused of unfairly cross-subsidising its own subsidiaries. A one-year investigation by Oftel, released yesterday, concluded associated service providers such as BT Mobile would be making a loss but for the help of their parent company.

According to David Edmonds, director general of Oftel, this pricing scheme is unfair on independent service providers. He recommended BT Cellnet lower its wholesale price to resolve the problem.

BT Cellnet denied the charges. A spokesman told silicon.com that less regulation, not more, was what the market needed to promote competition. He said: "Both Orange and One2One have had 'market entry assistance' - and that position hasn't changed, even though they now have mature organisations supporting them overseas, and a solid customer base."

In a written statement, BT Cellnet added Oftel was "wholly unreasonable" to use just three months' data to reach its conclusions. The company also claimed Oftel's methods for evaluating cross-subsidies were seven years out of date.

Elaine Axby, project director at Oftel, defended the Oftel formula. She said: "Oftel did update the formula earlier this year, particularly for this investigation."

Oftel has announced a one month public consultation on the issue, prior to a full review of competition in mobile phone services this autumn.

The spokesman for BT Cellnet said: "Our points to Oftel will be made quite strongly during this time."