The Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has initiated proceedings against the country’s four mobile companies – Era, Plus, Orange and Play – for hampering the launch of mobile TV in the country.
According to Rzeczpospolita, they face the prospect of being each find up to 10% of their revenues for last year. In practice, this could amount to a combined total of up to PLN2.5 billion (€629.8 million).
The licence to operate a mobile TV service was won in March 2009 by Info TV-FM, a company backed by the investment fund NFI Magna Polonia. In doing so, it beat off a rival bid from a consortium known as Mobile TV and made up of the four mobile companies, which are operated by PTC (Era), Polkomtel (Plus), PTK Centertel (Orange) and P4 (Play).
As a result of the unwillingness of the four mobile companies to co-operate with Info TV-FM, the latter has so far been unable to launch a full commercial service.
