Competition Commission of India rejects complaint against United Telecoms and BBNL

NEW DELHI: Fair trade regulator CCI has rejected charges that United Telecoms and Bharat Broadband Network Ltd had abused their dominant position in the market for broadband equipment.

The case relates to alleged predatory bidding by United Telecoms pursuant to a tender floated by Bharat Broadband Network for procurement of broadband equipments based on Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology along with accessories and after sale services.

The complaint filed by Telecommunication Users Group of India, had alleged that United Telecoms had quoted rates below the cost for the broadband equipments.

In an order released today, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said that the "issue of abuse of dominance by the opposite parties does not arise and, prima facie, no case of contravention of the provisions...of the (Competition) Act is made out against the opposite parties".

Among others, CCI said that the presence of foreign players such as ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent in the sale of GPON equipments "negates any entity possessing dominance in the relevant market".

Regarding Bharat Broadband Network, the Commission said that the entity had designed the bid document with terms and conditions based on the policy guidelines envisaged by the Department of Telecom.

It also said that there were presence of other procurers of GPON equipments in the market and Bharat Broadband Network was not dominant.