Czech Watchdog Mulls New Antitrust Laws After EU Pushback

The Czech Telecommunication (CTU) Office is drafting new measures to spur competition and designating incumbent MNOs as having significant market power.

 Last month the EU’s executive branch the European Commission blocked the regulator’s move to force operators to give favourable wholesale prices to MVNO looking to enter the Czech market, stating this was incompatible with European law.

Regulated wholesale prices were reported to have doubled in 2020 making it near impossible for MVNOs to turn a profit. 

The CTU stated there were unfavorable conditions for new entrants to the market, meaning they would not be able to produce competitive offerings. The regulator designated O2, T-Mobile, and Vodafone as having significant market power (SMP).

CommsUpdate reported that under the CTU’s new temporary measures, operators that are SMPs will have the obligation to offer two mobile service regulatory packages in all its existing mobile network access agreements across 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G.

The CTU will also ban margin squeezing by setting a maximum wholesale price, and force operators to allow access on wholesale packages to non-discriminatory terms even when striking a deal for an MVNO play. The regulation will come in for 18 months when activated.

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