p2pnet - rss feed: Portugal Telecom slashes prices
Following complaints of unfair competition, Portugal Telecom has been ordered to slash its wholesale prices for third-party access to its high-speed Internet network by a massive 84%.
"ANACOM [Portugal’s telecoms regulator] said in a statement Portugal Telecom would be required to lower its price for access to its broadband ADSL Internet network to 38 euros per instalation from the current 70 euros as of Monday," says an AFP report here.
"The former state monopoly currently charges its custumers just 42 euros to instal ADSL Internet access. Portugal Telecom detains an 85-percent share of the Portuguese high-speed Internet market."
Two of Portugal’s largest telecoms firms, Clix and IOL, announced they’d no longer accept new high-speed Internet custumers because the prices they were charged by Portugal Telecom for access to its ADSL network made the business unprofitable, says the report, adding:
"Portugal’s centre-right government has made upgrading technological infrastructure one of the pillars of its efforts to boost the nation’s economic competitiveness. The government wants half of all households to have access to high-speed Internet by the 2005.
Some 6.5 million people had access to the Internet in Portugal, a nation of just over 10 million, at the end of the the third quarter of 2003, ANACOM figures show. Of these, just 6.5 percent had high-speed Internet access, either by cable or through ADSL.
