CRTC’s lowering of HSA rates means small ISPs ‘free to innovate’: CNOC

The CRTC has set revised interim wholesale rates for high-speed access (HSA) services, criticizing large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for proposing “unreasonable” rates that were too high, in a move small ISPs say leaves them “free to innovate.” The commission said in a press release after analyzing the tariffs the large companies proposed to charge smaller providers for wholesale wireline Internet access, it “is of the view that the rates proposed by certain of the large companies were not just and reasonable and had to be revised downwards.” The CRTC said it “has reduced the proposed transport component rate for a number of companies by up to 89 ,” and reduced the “proposed access component rates of certain companies” by up to 39 per cent. “The fact that these large companies did not respect accepted costing principles and methodologies is very disturbing. What’s even more concerning is the fact that Canadians’ access to a choice of broadband Internet services would have been at stake had we not revised these rates,” CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais said in the release. Matt Stein, spokesman for the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) and Distributel Communications Ltd. CEO, said in a phone interview Thursday that he is “very pleased” by the decision. He noted that these are interim rates, and the final rates are still to be determined. “But if this is an indication of those final rates, then what this tells us is that there can continue to be competitive options for Internet, exactly as the chairman of the CRTC said,” he added. The decision “really opens the door to many things. It opens the door to high-bandwidth services that we would have been very shy to release before,” Stein said. He noted that Distributel launched TV service about two years ago, “in spite of these high rates. But our traction has been somewhat limited and our ability to deliver incredible value, as opposed to just solid value, has been limited by the extremely high costs of capacity.” “Well, now, with capacity costs being much lower, we’re free to innovate again. Free to innovate on value, free to innovate on technology, such as OTT… cloud services, really, you name it,” Stein said. “It’s a good day for competitive Internet in Canada.” He noted that the commission previously deemed the current rates unjust, “they never put a number on it. So the question was ‘how unjust?’ And now we know.” Stein said since the capacity-based billing regime was introduced in 2011, it was “crippled… immediately” by the high rates at which wholesale access was sold. “After all this time, the commission has finally recognized it and adjusted it,” he added. In its Thursday release, the CRTC said the large providers that submitted proposed rates were BCE Inc., Cogeco Inc., Manitoba Telecom Services Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp., Shaw Communications Inc., Telus Corp. and Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron. Bell and Telus declined to comment on the decision Thursday, stating they are currently reviewing it. Shaw declined to comment. Rogers spokesman Andrew Garas said in an email Thursday evening that the company is "disappointed and not agree with settling arbitrary rates. We believe in an evidence based, fair balance that both covers the cost of building and maintaining Canada's world-class networks and incents futher investments to keep powering our digital economy." — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca

CRTC’s lowering of HSA rates means small ISPs ‘free to innovate’: CNOC

News | October 6, 2016

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CRTC’s lowering of HSA rates means small ISPs ‘free to innovate’: CNOC

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