Belgium’s telecoms regulator BIPT has fined a consortium made up of cable operator Telenet and conglomerate Tecteo – which owns Walloon cableco Voo – for failing to roll out a mobile network using 3G licences they won in 2011.
The regulator…
Belgium’s telecoms regulator BIPT has fined a consortium made up of cable operator Telenet and conglomerate Tecteo – which owns Walloon cableco Voo – for failing to roll out a mobile network using 3G licences they won in 2011.
The regulator fined Telenet Tecteo BidCo (TTB) €5,000; the maximum amount it can impose upon an offender which does not have a turnover.
In addition to the charge the consortium could face further sanctions if it fails to launch within six months. It had been required to offer services by 15 January 2013.
In a statement the regulator said that by failing to roll out a service, TTB was depriving other interested parties of the high-quality frequencies.
When the joint venture was threatened with sanctions earlier this year, TTB reportedly argued that it still needed time to lease infrastructure from existing operators to be able to offer competitive services, and requested that the deadline be pushed back.
The consortium paid €71.5m in summer 2011 to acquire a 10-year licence allowing it become Belgium’s fourth network operator, alongside Base, Mobistar and Proximus.
Given the nature of the agreement, TTB did not pay for the licence upfront but instead is paying for it in yearly instalments over the lifetime of the agreement, until 2021.
Telenet already has an MVNO, which runs over Mobistar’s network. Last year Telenet extended that agreement to 2017, which will also allow Voo to offer mobile services.
