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Norway’s telecoms regulator found that Telenor had obstructed efforts to launch a third mobile network operator in the Scandinavian nation
Norwegian telco, Telenor, has been fined $96 million by Norway’s national regulator for abusing its dominant market position, according to a report from Reuters.
Norway’s Competition Authority said that Telenor had been resistant to plans to introduce a third mobile network operator to challenge Norway’s current duopoly of Telenor and Telia.
“The Competition Authority has found that Telenor deliberately altered the access agreement to stop Network Norway’s further investments in the third network,” the Competition Authority said in a statement.
It is probable that Telenor will opt to file an appeal against the decision, and a representative from the company told Reuters that the company "disagreed that [it] have violated the Competition Act”.
Telenor’s stock price dipped by one third of a percentage point on news of the fine, trading at $20.68 per share at 14:55pm (London time) on Thursday.
Telenor is Norway’s biggest telecoms operator and has 2.984 million mobile subscribers in Norway alone. The company has operations in 12 other countries across the globe, mainly centred around Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. It offers fixed line, mobile and TV services to its customers in an increasingly converged triple and quad play offering.
