Freeserve's BT complaint rejected

Freeserve customers "should be seriously concerned" about the time and money being invested by the ISP in complaining to Oftel, BT has said. BT's comments follows the findings of an Oftel investigation which cleared BT's broadband marketing strategy of breaching the Competition Act. Freeserve made a complaint in October to Oftel, objecting that BT was behaving anti-competitively by using its familiar blue telephone bill to market its broadband service as well as its '150' customer service line support number, and by offering joint telephony and internet billing. But Oftel found that the number of consumers taking BT Broadband was low enough not to have stifled competition, that the benefits of joint billing can be reproduced using credit card payments or direct debit and that competitors can market broadband at a lower cost than BT using the blue bill as a marketing tool. David Edmonds, director general of Telecommunications, said that BT's broadband marketing strategies "does not prevent Freeserve competing on a fair basis." Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, said: "This is the latest in a long line of complaints against us from Freeserve and another that Oftel has dismissed. I think that if I was a Freeserve customer I'd be seriously concerned about the time and money being invested in complaining to Oftel about BT." "A single point of customer service and information on different BT services through one pone number makes sense for the customer. Customers want the simple convenience of having everything on the same bill and expect BT to provide information about its range of services in its customer literature," added Danon. A Freeserve spokesman, said: "We are examining the decision and considering our position. One possible route is taking the case to the Competition Appeals Tribunal."