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.