Northwestel ordered to redo temporary relief application

The CRTC has ordered BCE Inc.’s Northwestel to resubmit its “urgent” application for temporary relief in order to waive overage fees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic because the application presupposes the regulator will determine to reinstate a subsidy for landlines. Northwestel submitted a Part 1 application and a tariff notice to the regulator on March 18 requesting the financial relief, stating in a press release that it could not take the consumer-friendly measures without it. Northwestel stressed the importance of supporting consumers during the COVID-19 “crisis”, and pointed to moves by a number of telecommunications providers to suspend overage fees for internet services. Its relief application has been supported by Yukon Energy Corporation and Nunavut Community and Government Services Minister Loren Kusugak, who both filed interventions with the regulator. The CRTC decided to phase out the local subsidy between 2019 and 2021 in announcing its $750 million Broadband Fund. According to Northwestel’s Part 1 application, in 2019 the company received $5.98 million in subsidy payments, which will drop to $3.81 million in 2020 and $1.63 million in 2021, before phasing out entirely. In eliminating the subsidy, the CRTC found it was “likely that the elimination of the local service subsidy will ultimately result in a material shortfall” for Northwestel, leading to the regulator committing to launch a specific and “fulsome” review. The regulator determined to allow Northwestel to index its residential rates to inflation in the interim, up to a maximum of five per cent annually. In its Part 1 application lodged with the CRTC, Northwestel asked for the local subsidy to be restored to 2019 levels until the regulator ruled on more permanent compensation going forward, in order to be able to deliver on its proposal to waive data overages for internet services until the end of April and create an unlimited cable plan as of May. Northwestel also proposed temporarily doubling data caps in its satellite-served communities where quickly increasing capacity is not “technologically possible.” In a letter to Northwestel, the CRTC’s telecommunications sector executive director Chris Seidl said that by making its promising conditional on the restoration of the local subsidy the regulator would be “prematurely reconsidering its determinations on local subsidy prior to receiving the submissions of other parties in an upcoming proceeding on that same issue.” “Given the nature of the issues raised in its Part 1 application, in addition to the challenges associated with participating in regulatory proceedings during this unique time of crisis, Northwestel is requested to re-file amendments to its existing internet tariff without preconditions, so that the Commission may give this important initiative its immediate consideration,” Seidl said in his letter.

Northwestel ordered to redo temporary relief application

Brief | March 19, 2020

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Northwestel ordered to redo temporary relief application

Brief | March 19, 2020

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