CRTC approves Northwestel winback promotion in split decision

BCE Inc. property Northwestel Inc. now has permission from the CRTC to establish a winback promotion regime. The program will apply to home internet users in the Far North. The northern incumbent is offering 12 new residential internet packages with unlimited usage. Rates would be discounted for a six-month period, after which they would return to the normal market rate. To be eligible for the winback promotion, a customer must not be an active Northwestel client, must previously have been a client for at least a month, and have disconnected Northwestel’s internet service for at least one month. They must also have subscribed to another provider’s internet service within Northwestel’s operating territory. The CRTC approval on Mar. 10 was a majority decision with two commissioners filing a joint dissent. Ontario’s Bram Abramson and Claire Anderson, who represents British Columbia and the Yukon, were concerned that no interventions on Northwestel’s proposal were submitted by competitors. The dissenting commissioners think that the northern telecom could have been mandated to tell its smaller competitors that the application had been filed, rather than relying on those competitors to be aware of the proceeding on their own. “Northwestel’s doing so would have created a better case for considering that these providers, opposed in interest to Northwestel, had nothing to add to the file,” the pair wrote. “Particularly given the commission’s recent and express commitment to helping address the need for more choice of internet service providers (ISPs) in the Far North, shining a brighter light on a proceeding focused on that very thing would, in our view, have been a step in our stated direction.” The commissioners wondered if the CRTC itself was the problem. “As suggested elsewhere, conflating a lack of interventions with implied consent awards the tie to the applicant, as it were, and creates a recipe for loopholes as a result,” the dissent states. “It is invariably at least as plausible that a lack of interventions points to potential deficiencies in our own procedures. “Where there clearly exist parties opposed directly in interest to the applicant, we should not be satisfied with reading into their silence.” The regulator noted that the major competitor to Northwestel in the region is Space Exploration Technologies Corp’s (Spacex) Starlink satellite service. Abramson and Anderson are not convinced Starlink’s presence as a competitor is enough to address the need for more consumer choice in the north. “The presence of a U.S.-based satellite provider–operated at enormous costs that underscore the continuing high barrier to entry and to scaling in the Far North–does not fully meet this need,” their dissent continued. Bell is in the process of selling Northwestel to Sixty North Unity, a consortium of Indigenous investors, for almost $1 billion. An announcement on any finalization of the deal has yet to be made. ppark@thewirereport.ca

CRTC approves Northwestel winback promotion in split decision

Regulatory |
By Paul Park
| March 10, 2025

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CRTC approves Northwestel winback promotion in split decision

Regulatory | By Paul Park | March 10, 2025

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| March 10, 2025