CRTC won’t enforce lower wholesale rates until review-and-vary is finished

The CRTC said Monday it has approved a stay request from incumbent telecoms asking the regulator not to enforce the wholesale rates it lowered in August 2019. That means the lower rates won’t be put in effect until the regulator decides on a review-and-vary application filed by the large telecoms that sell wholesale access to smaller internet service providers. The CRTC could also decide to change the rates as part of that review proceeding. In its decision approving the stay, the CRTC cited BCE Inc.’s argument that if the CRTC approves the review applications and increases the Aug. 2019 rates, the incumbents may not be able to recover retroactive payments from smaller ISPs. “Bell Canada provided historical evidence to support its claim that some competitors may be financially unable to repay amounts owed as a result of changes to the approved final rates,” the CRTC said in its decision. Bell told the CRTC that in the year before it submitted the review application, it disconnected 14 wholesale customers for non-payment and sent overdue notices to 10, out of a total of 150 customers. The CRTC also said it believes that the wholesale-based ISPs’ subscriber market share “will likely not be negatively affected” in the “short period of time” it will take to examine the review-and-vary requests. Earlier this month, smaller wholesale-based ISPs TekSavvy Solutions Inc., Distributel Communications Ltd., and the industry group the Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) all quickly moved to ask the CRTC to expedite the ongoing review-and-vary application. The incumbent telecoms — including Bell, Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc. — and wholesale-based ISPs have been fighting over the August 2019 rates for the past year. The incumbents challenged those lower rates in three different ways — with an appeal to cabinet, a court appeal, and the ongoing review-and-vary application at the CRTC. In August, a year after the CRTC decision lowering the rates, the federal cabinet declined to overturn that CRTC decision, though it expressed concern the rates were too low. Then on Sept. 10, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the incumbents’ appeal of that decision. In its Monday decision, the CRTC noted that there was already a court-ordered stay in place over the past year, which was lifted with that Sept. 10 court ruling. “Accordingly, the Commission considers that keeping a stay in place would allow for a fulsome examination of the review and vary requests, and thereby result in a more certain final outcome, while avoiding additional disruptions to the market during this period,” the regulator said. CNOC president Matt Stein said in a phone interview that the information about overdue and non-payment from wholesale customers provided by Bell to prove its claim it may not be able to recover money from smaller providers shows the "danger of letting this linger and go on far too long." "We need the CRTC to expedite their work and get the decision on the review-and-vary finished as soon as possible," Stein said. — Reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

CRTC won’t enforce lower wholesale rates until review-and-vary is finished

News | September 28, 2020

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CRTC won’t enforce lower wholesale rates until review-and-vary is finished

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