Posted: 16th Dec, 2010 By: MarkJ
Clear Mobitel (CM) has filed a formal
Competition Complaint with the
Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority (JCRA) after two key operators on the island, including an electricity company and a rival broadband ISP, allegedly denied them access to essential infrastructure and hindered planned trials of faster Mobile Broadband technology.
Crucially CM was recently granted a licence by Ofcom to conduct a trial of "
super-fast" 4G ( Long Term Evolution - LTE ) based Mobile Broadband technology over the
2600MHz spectrum band in Jersey (
here). Sadly the current situation has caused a serious delay to these trials.
The complaint itself claims that both the
Jersey Electricity Company (JEL) and
Newtel Holdings (NHL) participated in a serious breach of the
Jersey Competition Law 2005 by denying CM access to essential infrastructure, which is needed to compete in the
Channel Islands telecommunication markets.
As a direct result, CM alleges that it has been
substantially hindered in its effective entry into these markets, where it planned to offer both an
ultra high capacity IP network linking the Channel Islands to mainland UK and Europe; plus the LTE trial.
This has apparently led to the benefits that such competition would bring not being delivered to consumers in both
Jersey and
Guernsey in the expected timescale. At the time of writing no further information was available, except that CM had hired anti-trust law firm
Howrey LLP to help support its case.