The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has rejected charges of anti-competitive behaviour on United Telecoms and Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL).

This follows the complaint filed by Telecommunication Users Group of India, alleging that United Telecoms had quoted rates below the cost for the broadband equipments. The case relates to bidding by United Telecoms pursuant to a tender floated by BBNL for procurement of broadband equipments based on Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology along with accessories and after sale services.

CCI is of the view that the presence of foreign players such as ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent in the bid process for GPON equipment procurement negates market dominance of United Telecoms. It also states that BBNL had designed the bid document with terms and conditions based on the policy guidelines provided by the Department of Telecommunications. Similarly, the presence of other procurers of GPON equipments in the market negates market dominance by BBNL as well.