The Industrial Board of Appeals has thrown out Dutch telecoms regulator Opta’s plans to open up the market in cable television.

The verdict comes as Tele2 was beginning to break open the market by offering competition to the big operators UPC and Ziggo, reports Wednesday’s Parool.
Opta has been fighting for three years to ensure competition in the cable tv market and had received permission from the European Commission to pursue its plans.
Tele2 wanted to make use of Ziggo and UPC networks to offer its own packet of broadcasters to viewers at a lower price. It has already opened up telephony in the Netherlands by using the cables of telecoms company KPN.