Investigation into BT's conduct during the tender of the NIPSSN contract

Following our investigation, Ofcom has today issued a Confirmation Decision to BT under section 96C of the Communications Act 2003 for contravening SMP Condition 5 of the Fixed Access Market Review 2014.

We have found that, during the 2017/18 tender for the Northern Ireland Public Sector Shared Network contract, BT breached its regulatory obligations by failing to provide network access to its Fibre on Demand product to the two bidders – BT and Eir – on an Equivalence of Inputs basis.

BT has admitted that it contravened SMP Condition 5 and has entered into a voluntary settlement agreement with Ofcom.

Ofcom has imposed a penalty of £6.3m on BT for these breaches of its regulatory obligations. The penalty includes a 30% discount from the penalty Ofcom would otherwise have imposed as a result of BT accepting liability and entering into a voluntary settlement with Ofcom.

More details are available in our media release.

A non-confidential version of the Confirmation Decision will be available shortly.

Ofcom has opened an investigation under the Communications Act 2003 in relation to BT’s conduct during the tender of the Northern Ireland Public Sector Shared Network contract, which will provide network services to a number of public sector organisations in Northern Ireland.

The investigation will consider whether BT complied with relevant SMP conditions set out in the Fixed Access Market Review 2014 and the Wholesale Local Access Market Review 2018.

Specifically, Ofcom will consider:

• whether BT provided network access on reasonable request and on fair and reasonable terms, conditions and charges as required by SMP condition 1;
• whether BT unduly discriminated against other communications providers as prohibited by SMP condition 4; and/or
• whether BT provided network access on an Equivalence of Inputs basis as required by SMP condition 5.

Ofcom will provide a further update in due course.