Utelco reps to meet over wholesale access situation

The United Telecom Council of Canada's board members plan to convene within a week to hash out a stance on wholesale access and essential services - a critical matter currently before the CRTC that could have a profound effect on utelcos (Telecom Public Notice 2006-14)."We are going to have to do some work to figure out our position," said Laurence Dunbar, UTC Canada's legal counsel and a partner at Johnston & Buchan LLP, speaking at the Canadian Utility Telecom Conference in Toronto on March 28.The commission is considering what network elements should be considered essential and therefore offered to competitors at mandated wholesale rates. Incumbent telephone companies want the definition of an essential service to be narrowed which would dramatically reduce the number of services they have to offer to competitors at reduced rates. One of the services under review is Competitor Digital Network Access (CDNA), which gives competitors access to ILECs facilities at inexpensive rates. Utelcos such as Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc. and Calgary's Enmax Envision Inc. offer wholesale services to competitors, but the association argues CDNA rates are already too low, making it difficult for utelcos to compete. No one's quite sure how deregulation would affect CDNA prices. Would the incumbents, unfettered, raise prices? Or would a competitive market force prices down? Which is better for u-telcos? Those are the sorts of questions UTC Canada's board will consider before making its stand, Dunbar said.But it's not the only regulatory matter on his plate these days. Dunbar and UTC Canada are also watching the local service forbearance situation. The CRTC created a regime last year that was panned by ILECs and is now in jeopardy of being changed after Industry Minister Maxime Bernier proposed a new regime last December. Nonetheless, the CRTC recently announced that Burnaby BC-based incumbent Telus Corp. would be the first ILEC in the country allowed to set local telephony prices in Fort McMurray AB only after it met all 14 competitor quality of service indicators as required by the CRTC in Telecom Decision 2006-15. The irony of the decision wasn't lost on Dunbar. "It's kind of an odd press release," he said. "It says, ‘You have forbearance, but not really.'"UTC Canada also wonders if the government will begin the process of writing a new Telecommunications Act this year. "The answer is not yet known," Dunbar said. He added that Bernier seems keen to have his government's preferred hands-off regulatory policy written down for the record; however, there are no guarantees that the Conservative-led government will survive the next election, whenever it may be. And who knows if Bernier himself will maintain the Industry portfolio? Too many variables make it difficult to speculate, Dunbar said.Even if the horizon is foggy, the path forward is clearer, noted Dina Graser, an associate lawyer at Goodmans LLP. In her conference presentation, she said the industry hammered out some important decisions last year that pave the way for utelco operations. For instance, the Federal Court upheld a CRTC decision regarding access to network facilities. Previously the commission decided that a dispute between Allstream Corp. and the City of Edmonton over ongoing access to Allstream infrastructure in Edmonton's Light Rapid Transit (LRT) tunnels fell under CRTC jurisdiction. Edmonton disagreed, arguing that wording in the Telecommunications Act put the dispute beyond the commission's purview. Specifically, Section 43(4) says that if a carrier can't reach an agreement with an authority "to construct a transmission line", the carrier can apply to the CRTC for permission to do so. Note: that's "construct." Section 43(3) says nothing about constructed infrastructure, such as that which Allstream and Edmonton were disputing, the city said, adding that the commission should butt out.But the courts sided with the CRTC: the Act covers access disputes as well as construction disputes. "It was good to get that clarification," Graser said.Another regulatory matter facing utility telecom providers is broadband power line (BPL) technology, which turns electricity transmission wires into high-speed Internet conduits. It's a contentious issue because it spans regulators - the CRTC, Industry Canada and the provincial energy boards - and it affects all sorts of carriers including utelcos, DSL and cable broadband providers, and wireless network operators.According to Troy Hare, chair of UTC Canada's BPL subcommittee, these challenges have stalled the technology's success. Even though Industry Canada collected comments about regulatory and technical standards in 2005, "we have yet to hear a policy decision," Hare said. "It was due late last year," and it could come at any time - but no one seems to know when."I don't think it will be a straight-out ‘no'" to BPL, Hare said. "It's going to be ‘yes' with caveats."Dave Dobbin, head of Toronto Hydro Telecom, pointed out that BPL has been stuck in neutral for a long time. He seemed doubtful that the technology would survive. "It's a mess."

Utelco reps to meet over wholesale access situation

News | April 1, 2007

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