The end of telecom monopolies?

The information has yet to be officially confirmed but it appears that China Telecom may be under anti-monopoly investigation.

Its sin(s)? Abuse of dominance in the broadband market or more specifically charging other broadband service operators discriminatory network access fees. For those not versed in competition law jargon it means that the company is taking advantage of its position in the market to squeeze out competitors (usually by forcing them to resell services to the final customer under the cost of production).

The anti-monopoly law is one of the latest weapon in the arsenal of those trying to instill fair competition in the Chinese telecommunication market. The real question is why China Telecom’s counterpart (China Unicom) does not incur a similar investigation, given that both companies have nicely divided the country in two – the South for China Telecom and the North for China Unicom?