European regulator probes telecos' meetings

The European competition watchdog may launch an investigation on Europe's biggest telecoms companies to find out whether a series of meetings held by their top executives since 2010 led to possible collusion.

As the first stage of an anti-trust action, the European Commission (EC) has sent a questionnaire France Telecom, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom, and as well as to the mobile operators' trade association, the GSMA.

Although the Brussels-based EC has yet to launch a formal investigation by demanding information on the meetings, it is collecting information as a first step towards starting a full-fledged inquiry.

The EC confirmed that it had sent out the questionaire, but stressed that at this stage no formal investigation has been launched.

''The requests for information relate to the manner in which standardisation for future services in the mobile-communications area is taking place,'' a spokesman for EC competition chief Joaquin Almunia said. ''These fact-finding steps do not mean that we have competition concerns at this stage, nor do they prejudge the follow-up.''

The five mobile operators - dubbed the "E5", had a series of meetings starting from the beginning of 2010 to discuss future mobile internet standards.
 
But according to some unconfirmed media reports, the E5, at the initiative from France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard, started to hold meetings from early 2010 to find out ways to develop new services and technologies like mobile advertising and messaging technologies in order to counter similar services from Google and Apple.

But industry experts were surprised at the EC questionnaire since the commission was informed of all such meetings that were conducted in the presence of lawyers. They also say that that the minutes of all the meetings were sent to the regulator.