Spanish telco defiant over huge broadband anti-trust fine

O2 parent company Telefónica has protested innocence after it was slammed by European anti-trust regulators for gaming the broadband market in its Spanish home territory. The firm was yesterday hit with a €152m fine, the second largest in EU competition history after Microsoft's €280m wrist slap. Brussels said Telefónica's …

[Anonymous Coward]

Telefonica de España is not alone

So, when the EU going to fine France Telecom about dragging their heels in unbundling the local loop? (again)

[Anonymous Coward]

Telefonica

Telefonica basic broadband price is 39.99 euros/month (£28.50/month) and is typically 1Mb speed (upload is only 128Kb!). The last yr finally saw some other operators offer cheaper ADSL e.g Wanadoo 23 euros/month (£16.50) but still at low speeds. To get the higher speeds from other operators you would still be paying 34+ euros/month. Telefonica service is inept, and often try to rip off customers referring to (very) small print in contracts ... so its basically BT but in Spanish ;-)

[Steven Walker]

What about the customrs

I have been paying roughly 50% more than UK ADSL

customers for the last seven years or so. It is wonderful news to hear that Teflonica have been fined €150m for their evil practices. It would be even better news to hear that the penalty would be passed onto their wholesale customers and then onto the retail customers.

[Martin Saunders]

If you think Spain is bad...

...try Portugal. PT take 6-8 weeks on average to install a dedicated copper line (full MPF in UK terms) for use with SHDSL or ADSL with a provider supplied voice service. The old nutshell of 'poor address matching' is the common excuse.

[Dunhill]

Spamlovers

Now they need to put even more spammers into their network, to pay the fine, so their service level will be even lower