Germany's antitrust authorities launched an investigation into whether Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Vodafone have abused their dominant market positions there, Dutch telecoms carrier KPN said. KPN claimed it had triggered the investigation by the Federal Cartel Office in Germany by its complaint, according to a Reuters report.
Germany's Cartel Office was not available for comment.
Separately, Belgium's competition watchdogs have found that the country's dominant carrier, Proximus, abused its dominant market position according to the Reuters report .
The report also quoted KPN's chief Stan Miller saying that 'the actions now taken by the competition authorities both in Germany and Belgium confirm our belief that the dominant providers are engaging in anti-competitive behaviour on both the Belgian and German markets.'
'Over the past years KPN, E-Plus and BASE had repeatedly demanded corrective action against the abusive behaviour of certain operators on the German and Belgian mobile communications markets, which affects not only competition, but also consumer interests,' KPN was quoted as saying.
The company added that this relates to discussions on mobile termination rates, the allocation of frequencies and pricing for fixed to mobile connections.
KPN owns mobile networks in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.