Telus requests four-month extension of fibre access deadline

Telus Corp. has asked for an additional four months until it has to provide competitors with wholesale access to its fibre networks in Alberta and British Columbia. Citing the “extensive development work” needed to set up a reliable, automated service, the company filed a review and vary application with the CRTC on Tuesday requesting the mandated deadline be extended from Feb. 13, 2025 until “at least” June 13, 2025. In August, the CRTC mandated aggregated wholesale access to incumbent fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks across Canada, in a bid to boost competition in internet services. On Oct. 25. it set the interim rates that incumbents can charge competitors for that access. Telus, along with Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. and BCE Inc., were given six months to open their last-mile networks. Telus now wants it increased to 10 months. “TELUS has been working diligently to make this deadline, but it has become clear that it will be impossible to implement an automated and reliable system by that date,” the telecom wrote in its application. Telus explained that it needs to automate “many of the manual processes that would otherwise be needed to operate and access its aggregated FTTP service.” If it does not, “TELUS and its reseller customers will need to execute these processes manually, resulting in a resource-intensive, error-prone, and time-consuming processes that will hurt the reseller experience and create friction for end users.” Manual systems are “not workable” for FTTP services in Telus’ Alberta and B.C. serving areas because of their large size, said Telus. Last November, the CRTC issued an interim decision mandating wholesale access to Bell and Telus’ fibre networks in Ontario and Quebec – the companies also had a six-month implementation deadline at that time. Telus noted in its application that it was able to meet that previous deadline “because the serving territory’s small size allowed TELUS to implement using manual systems.” “Manual systems are able to accommodate relatively low order volumes; TELUS anticipated low demand in its Quebec serving territory, and since TELUS has not received any orders from resellers to date, it has had no need to develop more robust or scalable systems,” the telecom continued. However, the serving areas in Alberta and B.C. “cover approximately ten times as many premises as TELUS’ serving area in Quebec,” the company said, adding that it also “anticipates much greater demand.” Telus took aim at the CRTC’s reasoning behind the six-month deadline, stating that its experience offering aggregated wholesale fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) service is “an irrelevant consideration.” FTTN refers to fibre networks that end at a “node” or junction box, from which the last-mile connection to the user’s property stems from. “Implementing an aggregated FTTP service requires TELUS to develop entirely new systems from those it used to implement its aggregated wholesale FTTN service,” the company argued. Telus also argued that Bell has much more experience than Telus when it comes to wholesale fibre access. It noted that Bell had been mandated to provide FTTP access on a disaggregated basis – which requires competitors to invest or lease the transport facilities of a network separately – since 2015, while Telus has never implemented “any FTTP mandate of a significant scale.” Stakeholders can submit interventions for the application until Nov. 29. phalentm@thewirereport.ca

Telus requests four-month extension of fibre access deadline

Regulatory |
By Phalen Tynes-MacDonald
| October 31, 2024

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Telus requests four-month extension of fibre access deadline

Regulatory | By Phalen Tynes-MacDonald | October 31, 2024

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