Did Ofcom force BTs broadband price rises?
BT’s decision this week to increase its wholesale business broadband prices by as much as 30 percent may have been prompted by an ongoing official investigation into competition issues. According to sources familiar with the case, Ofcom’s review is likely to conclude that BT should alter the costs of some of its high-speed networking products in order to create more competition in the UK broadband market. BT has refused to comment on the suggestion that it had made these price rises now because it knew that Ofcom would soon force it to make them anyway. Ofcom itself, though, has implied that there is a link. If so, it adds weight to the theory that Ofcom is managing to regulate BT rather more tightly than Oftel, its predecessor, was able. The price rises, reported on Tuesday, have been made to BT’s IPStream Office and IPStream S range. IPStream products are bought by ISPs that sell broadband to small businesses and power users. BT told ISPs this week that the increases were made “in or
