October 18 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian unit of Norway's telecommunications group Telenor on Tuesday disagreed with the conclusions of the country's competition regulator that the company had been involved in misleading advertising of the characteristics of their 4G LTE network.
Telenor Bulgaria also disagreed with the fine of 5.2 million levs ($2.92 million/2.65 million euro) imposed by the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC), the company said in a press release.
"Telenor respectfully disagrees with the findings and the sanction [...]. Even though we note that the entire 4G advertising campaign has been thoroughly assessed by the Commission and considered fully compliant with law.," Telenor Bulgaria.said.
The company said it is reviewing in detail the decision of the regulator and will release a further comment.
On Monday, the CPC said it imposed the fine on Telenor Bulgaria for publicly spreading false information about the data transfer speed of their 4G LTE network for a period of 10 months.
"The possibility of misleading the current and potential customers of Telenor Bulgaria on the data transfer speed through 4G LTE network is completely real. The statement of about 40 times faster upload at the beginning of the campaign is significantly exaggerated, as the achievable maximum speed of upload, after the occurrence of the regulatory requirement for publication, proves only about 6.5 times higher than that of Telenor’s 3G network," the regulator said.
The fine represents 1% of Telenor Bulgaria's 2015 net sales revenue of 524.2 million levs., the CPC added.
Telenor Bulgaria launched its 4G/LTE network In December 2015.
The CPC imposed the fine following a complaint from Bulgarian 4G operator Max.
On the mobile segment, Telenor Bulgaria competes with Mtel, the local unit of Telekom Austria, Bulgarian telecommunications group BTC, which operates under the brand name Vivacom, as well as with Max.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)