BT's DataStream under new fire

The company, a subsidiary of Spanish incumbent Telefonica, said that BT has notified Oftel of its intention to increase prices for the ATM Virtual Path component of DataStream by up to 40%, which mediaWays claims will increase costs for BT's competitors by almost 60 pence per line.

The DataStream product enables BT's rival operators to offer wholesale broadband services to ISPs using their own networks and BT's local loop, as an alternative to BT IPStream, which runs entirely through BT-owned networks.

"The DataStream product enables a far more diverse product range for ISPs than IPStream and a range of functionality benefits that operators can uniquely offer," said Martin Kuetter, MD of mediaWays.

"But BT's consistent abuse of its market power is stifling competition and placing excessive burden on the operators. Worryingly, Oftel's ability to keep pace and react to anti-competitive price tactics such as these is in question."

A spokesperson for Oftel confirmed that it had received both the complaint from mediaWays, and notification of the price change for the ATM Virtual Path component of DataStream from BT.

"We don't have to approve every price change that BT makes, but they do have to notify us of changes," he added.

The regulator is already investigating DataStream pricing, following complaints earlier this year from a number of operators including mediaWays, Energis, Thus, Tiscali and Your Communications, that BT had created a margin squeeze by cutting prices for IPStream and not DataStream.

BT responded with a 70 pence price cut per line for DataStream, a move the operators claimed was a token gesture that did not go far enough. Energis, supported by Tiscali and Your Communications, has since resubmitted the complaint under the Competition Act.

The Oftel spokesperson said the new complaint from mediaWays.uk would be treated separately to the existing investigation, but added that there was likely to be some overlap since both complaints relate to DataStream pricing. The outcome of the existing investigation is expected "shortly".



BT said that it has notified Oftel that the charges for the various virtual path components of the ATM part of DataStream, which were previously aggregated, would be split with each component priced to reflect the cost and value of that component.

A spokesperson for BT, said that mediaWays could view its decision to price the components separately as a price increase, but said he could not comment on the 60p per line increase as it would depend on how any wholesale customer assembled their DataStream based services.

"As ever, we'll co-operate with any enquiries from Oftel arising from any complaint," he added.

Tiscali said it could not comment until it had seen BT's price change notification, while Energis and Thus could net be reached for comment.

17 June 2003:

"www.mediaways.co.uk ":http://www.mediaways.co.uk

"www.oftel.gov.uk ":http://www.oftel.gov.uk

"www.bt.com ":http://www.bt.com

"Email us about this story ":mailto:editorial@netimperative.com