EU Monopoly Charges For Polish, Slovak Telecoms

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union regulators on Monday charged Polish and Slovak telecoms operators with monopoly abuse, saying it suspected that Telekomunikacja Polska and Slovak Telekom both tried to hinder rivals from offering broadband Internet in both countries.

The European Commission said it would deal with each case separately and there was no deadline before it took a final decision on whether they broke the law — which could see them fined up to 10 percent of their annual global revenue.

Both companies are their country's leading phone and Internet provider and control the main telecoms infrastructure which means they could hurt rivals by refusing to give them access to the networks that supply customers. ...