Phone providers cannot make clients take extra services
European Union states have the right to prohibit telecoms companies from forcing clients to sign up to services they do not want in order to get the services they do want, the EU's court ruled Thursday in a case brought in Poland.
But they cannot stop such companies offering packages of services as long as the client can choose not to take them, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled.
The judgement comes following a clash in late 2006 between Poland's main phone operator, Telekomunikacja Polska (TP), and the Polish telecoms regulator, UKE.
UKE had ruled that TP's practice of offering clients a high-speed internet link on condition that they also sign up to a telephone connection was illegal.
TP challenged the decision in the Polish courts, which asked the ECJ in Luxembourg to give its opinion on the case.
EU rules "cannot preclude national legislation which, for the purpose of protecting end-users, prohibits an undertaking from making the conclusion of a contract for the provision of telecommunications services contingent on the conclusion, by the end-user, of a contract for the provision of other services," the ECJ decided.
But at the same time, the court judged that EU rules which came into force in December 2007 do mean that national regulators cannot impose a blanket ban on linked offers - such as internet and phone communications - from telecoms companies.
That means that telecoms firms can in general make such offers, as long as the customer is not forced to accept them.
It now falls to the Polish courts to decide on the TP-UKE case in the light of the ECJ's ruling.