The Liberal party is calling on the Conservative government to review the CRTC’s controversial decision on usage-based billing--a ruling that Industry Minister Tony Clement says he will now study.

“We want to preserve net-neutrality as much as possible. Secondly, we believe this will inhibit competition,” Marc Garneau, the party’s industry critic, said in an interview Monday.

“This penalizes, unfairly, the small ISPs [Internet service providers] that compete against the bigger ones.”

Last May, the CRTC approved an application by Bell Canada to introduce usage-based billing rates for its wholesale Internet services. The decision means incumbent telcos can charge usage-based rates of Internet resellers that lease access to the incumbents’ networks.

This month, the commission ruled that usage-based billing rates for Internet resellers will be established at a 15 per cent discount from the usage-based rates the incumbents charge their retail customers.

“We urge the Conservative government to review the CRTC’s decision because we think it’s incorrect,” Garneau said. 

Garneau said government policy should strive to provide incentives and opportunities for smaller players to enter the market and compete.

“Ultimately the purpose is to give consumers more choice,” he said.

Following Garneau’s comments Monday, Industry Minister Tony Clement’s office sent a statement to The Wire Report, in which Clement said the government will carefully study the CRTC decision.

He said it is the minister’s job to encourage an innovative and competitive marketplace to ensure consumer choice, and acknowledged that, last week, Quebec consulting company Vaxination Informatique filed a petition with the federal cabinet, asking for a review of the CRTC ruling. 

“I can assure that, as with any ruling, this decision will be studied carefully to ensure that competition, innovation and consumers were all fairly considered,” Clement said.

“The Harper Government is committed to encouraging choice and competition in wireless and Internet markets. Increased choice results in more competition, which means lower prices and better quality services for Canadians. We have always been clear on our policies in this regard and will continue on this path.”

Clement added that Canadians can count on the Conservative government to “do what is in the best interest of consumers.”

Garneau said the Liberals would like to see changes to the decision, but he could not offer specifics Monday.

He said the party would have to further study the issue, reviewing data and trends, before proposing detailed changes.

“You don’t want to tilt it too much against the established players, but at the same time you want to give smaller players the opportunity to set up,” he said.

Garneau said usage-based billing will hamper consumption habits as people move to Internet television services.

“They’re not going to be able to compete against the larger [ISPs], which have cable television capabilities to begin with and are bringing in IPTV [Internet protocol television] on fibre-optic links.”

Garneau said he did not know whether the issue had come to the attention of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

The Liberals have also said they support speed matching, a policy that would allow Internet resellers to offer Internet speeds matching those of the incumbents’ retail speeds.

The NDP is also a supporter of net-neutrality rules, and NDP MP Charlie Angus, the party’s digital affairs critic, has been a vocal critic of the CRTC’s usage-based billing decision.

“The large ISP-broadcast entities now have a tool for squashing their main competitors—both in internet and video services,” Angus said in a release this month. “We need clear rules that put consumers first.”

The issue has been the focus of a public relations campaign and petition by advocacy group OpenMedia.ca.

On Monday, OpenMedia reported that its petition against the usage-based billing ruling had reached 160,000 signatures.

The petition, which the group said is growing at a rate of 15,000 signatures per day, calls on politicians to take action against the policy.

David Ellis, a technology consultant and educator at York University's department of communication studies, said in an interview that small ISPs struggling under the policy may be helped by government intervention.

Ellis said the policy will lead to higher Internet bills and discourage people from using bandwidth-eating services like Netflix.

In general, he said, metered usage discourages consumers from using the Internet, which goes against the federal government's policy of encouraging broadband uptake.

Incumbent Internet providers argue that usage-based billing is necessary to alleviate growing network congestion.

The CRTC says its 15 per cent discount for Internet resellers is not so large that it will impact the effectiveness of usage-based billing and not so small that it will affect the competitors' capacity to recover costs.

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