Italy's anti-trust authority on
Thursday opened proceedings against Telecom Italia and Fastweb
for possible uncompetitive practices after they unveiled a
fibre-optic joint venture called Flash Fiber. Antitrust agents
searched offices of the two companies, helped by the antitrust
unit of the Finance Guards.
Flash Fiber aims to build fibre-optic networks in Fiber To
The Home (FTTH) architecture in Italy's 29 biggest cities.
The antitrust said "the accord, while being promoted to the
declared end of enabling a more efficient development of
innovative technological infrastructure, may, at the same time,
prove to be potentially prone towards preventing, restricting or
falsifying in a major way competition on national markets for
gross access to landlines and retail broadband and ultrawide
band telecommunications services".
Fastweb and Telecom Italia said they had done nothing wrong
and would collaborate fully with authorities.
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