Freeserve refuses defeat over BT

Freeserve has decided to launch a new appeal against Oftel's decision that BT Openworld was not engaged in anti-competitive pricing.

The ISP still believes that BT Openworld's decision to cut the price of its consumer ADSL product in March 2002 was unfair.

Freeserve first lodged a complaint with Oftel against BT Openworld in March 2002, which was dismissed by Oftel in May 2002. An appeal by Freeserve to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in September 2002 led to a second investigation by Oftel but last month the regulator concluded that its earlier ruling was correct.

But Freeserve has refused to give up on the issue and has decided to appeal to the CAT for a second time.

In a statement, Freeserve said: "Now that Freeserve has seen the full decision, it is clear that we disagree with a number of the key assumptions and conclusions in the decision, which we believe is fundamentally flawed on factual, legal and methodological bases."

"Given the importance of achieving sustainable competition in the Broadband market we believe it in the interests of all parties involved that clarity and certainty is brought to this area as soon as possible and will be looking to get the Appeal filed with the CAT at the earliest opportunity."

A spokesman for BT, said: "Surely they must have had enough of their complaints being kicked into touch on a perpetual basis? Certainly we hope that the new regulator will filter out such spurious claims given that they devour so much resource from all parties."

New UK communications regulator Ofcom launches on 29 December, replacing five regulatory bodies including Oftel and the Independent Television Commission(ITC).

Oftel's November decision was published on the Office of Fair Trading's website today.