EU Monopoly Charges For Polish, Slovak Telecoms

"The Commission will look into practices which inhibit third parties from successfully providing broadband services," it said.

Regulators said they would also examine behavior not related to pricing that would prevent rivals purchasing wholesale broadband from TP that they could then sell on to business and households — putting them directly into competition against TP.

Slovak Telekom is 51-percent owned by Deutsche Telekom, Europe's biggest telecom company. The remaining stake is controlled by the Slovakian government.

The EU executive said it would also examine whether Slovak Telekom deliberately refused to supply rivals looking for access to the local network and whether it also offered below-cost prices and related products as part of a strategy to squeeze out others.

Regulators said the companies would have the right to defend themselves before any decision is taken on whether it broke the law.

The EU fined Spain's Telefonica SA almost euro152 million in 2007 for, saying the company unfairly squeezed rivals by setting wholesale Internet prices too high to allow them turn a profit.