Press Release: In recent weeks, not only customers, but also politicians have started to deal with the prices of mobile services. The Czech Telecommunications Authority even joined the game. Will Czech consumers expect lower prices?
A helping hand in the form of an amendment to the Telecommunications Act
The political parties began to solve the situation in their own way and agreed on an abbreviated discussion of the proposal amendments to the Telecommunications Act. The whole case has already cost the Minister of Industry, Jan Mládek, a chair. And it doesn't end with one person. He also intervened in the process Office for Protection of Competition. The deputies want to discuss the entire amendment in accelerated management, which should solve this unfavorable situation in the mobile market as soon as possible. This law should apply to all mobile phones tariffs, not only mobile internet.
Absence of mobile operators
Everything should begin to be discussed at the April meeting of the House of Representatives. The classic time for discussing laws in the House committees is 60 days, is now shortened to 20 days. In addition to the fight for better conditions for customers of mobile operators, the law applies to the transition to DVB-T2 digital television broadcasting, which should be much smoother. Everything should be done by the end of the election period. None of the operators was invited to the entire meeting, which is not liked by the chairman of the economic committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Ivan Pilny from the ANO movement, for example.
Investigation by the Antimonopoly Office
The amendment to the Telecommunications Act is not alone in this. He also began to focus on this issue Antimonopoly Office, which launched its own investigation of mobile operators. Office for Protection of Competition had the task of finding out if any of the operators is not using their dominant position, that is, if there is no cartel in the mobile market. He came up with the claim that due to the frequent transitions of customers from one operator to another, there is price following, which is not prohibited in the framework of economic competition, and thus operators can afford to offer unlimited tariffs at high prices. So what does that mean? There is no direct evidence that there is a cartel on the part of mobile operators in the Czech Republic. In addition, the Office for the Protection of Economic Competition comes up with a solution that would help the whole situation to strengthen the position of virtual operators. We can only wait to see how this whole action in the form of an amendment to the Telecommunications Act will turn out. However, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka himself believes that the changes that the law could bring will create enough pressure to lower the prices of mobile services and data.
