Press Releases

Budapest, September 1, 2005

Today T-Com filed a complaint with the Hungarian Competition Authority because, according to T-Com's opinion, Tele2 infringed the Competition Act on numerous occasions with advertisements published recently. The leading service provider on the domestic telecommunications market, T-Com decided to request the Competition Authority, as an independent organization, to help protect the fairness of competition in telecommunications.

Tele2's advertisements declared on numerous occasions that with the "1502" tariff package the customer will not pay a monthly fee. This statement is misleading since the customers selecting this tariff package also have to pay a monthly fee.

Another recurring element of advertisements is that customers selecting Tele2's "1502" tariff package can save up to 40% of phone costs. Calculating with the usage tariffs and monthly fees of the compared tariff packages (T-Com "Bázis" - Tele2 "1502") it can be established that 40% saving cannot be achieved even with extreme phoning patterns since the comparison does not calculate with the subscription fee. This element of the advertisements can also mislead customers.

A Tele2 flyer compared T-Com's "Favorit" and "Favorit Plusz" tariff packages with Tele2's "Extra" and "Extra Plusz" tariff packages by incorrectly showing the reduced tariff periods of T-Com's tariff packages. The information on the flier can also mislead customers.

In recent months a rising number of contacts and complaints were made by customers to T-Com's customer care service as a result of Tele2's misleading advertisements. In view of this situation T-Com today turned to the Competition Authority.

"We are very sorry that it came to this situation where we are forced to threaten each other with procedures. In view of the clashes of the past weeks we have reached the conclusion that it is not the offers, but the communication strategies that are competing with each other now. We are convinced that this fight does not help customers have a clear picture and does not facilitate finding the best solution in the maze of various offers. That is why we decided to request the Competition Authority, as an independent organization, to contribute to fairness of competition in telecommunications through this procedure" - said Bálint Nagy, the Magyar Telekom Group's Communications Director.