Vodafone Qatar claims victory over Qtel's Virgin Mobile launch

Doha: Vodafone Qatar, winner of the Gulf state's second mobile licence, said yesterday it welcomed industry regulator ictQatar's decision that Qtel's partnership with Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile had "violated" the country's telecoms law.

"In this decision, ictQatar determined that Vodafone Qatar was correct in its complaint that Qtel had illegally violated the Qatar telecoms law and significantly mislead the people in Qatar by their introduction of Virgin Mobile in Qatar," Vodafone Qatar said in an emailed statement.

Vodafone Qatar in May declared it was launching legal action over Branson's Virgin Mobile, which a few weeks earlier formed a licensing partnership with incumbent operator Qtel.

Vodafone Qatar, a unit of UK telecoms giant Vodafone Group, argued that Virgin's launch was equivalent to a third operator entering the market and therefore unlawful.

However, citing ictQatar's ruling, Qtel, or Qatar Telecom, said yesterday it disputed this claim.

"The review found that the core complaint of Vodafone Qatar-that Qtel's ‘Virgin Mobile service was a "third mobile service provider" or MVNO — was baseless and without foundation," Qtel said in an emailed statement.

Virgin Mobile and ictQatar were immediately unavailable for comment.

IctQatar has asked Qtel to "change significantly how the Virgin Mobile brand in Qatar is represented", the statement said.