Deferral account ruling appealed again

Axia SuperNet Ltd. has told the CRTC that its wholesale business plan will be compromised if its deferral account ruling is allowed to stand as is. The owner and operator of Alberta's provincial broadband network appealed the decision earlier this week, also noting that the decision compromises the Alberta government's $193-million investment in the network and the project's successes to date. SuperNet was funded by the Alberta government to bring broadband access to more than 400 communities in rural and remote regions of the province. The network was to be for transport purposes only and local ISPs would then connect to SuperNet to provide residential and business retail services. To date, more than 61 ISPs, including Telus Corp., have connected to the network in more than 242 communities. Axia's argument hinges on the commission's determination that Telus' broadband expansion has to be completed using least cost technology. In this regard, SuperNet asks the commission to carefully scrutinize Telus' projected costs of construction. If it is cheaper to interconnect with SuperNet facilities, then Telus should not be allowed to build its own long-haul network. "Clearly the use of additional public funds to build duplicate transport facilities to communities that are not using the existing publicly funded facilities is not an efficient or effective use of public funds," argues Axia. The company contends that the ruling allows Telus to build duplicate transport facilities to communities that are already served by Axia's network - something that wasn't permitted when the commission determined that monies in the ILECs deferral accounts could be used to extend broadband in rural and remote regions of the country. The original decision, now nearly two years old, stipulated that the deferral account money couldn't be used in communities that had already received government funding for broadband deployment and in areas where broadband service was already being offered by another provider. "Neither of these conditions is satisfied by the extension of deferral account funds to subsidize the construction of duplicate transport facilities to SuperNet communities," argues Axia. "In practice, the extension of deferral account funding to Telus to build duplicate transport facilities will undermine existing and future competitive entry in the affected SuperNet communities, and will strand SuperNet, Axia and ISP investment. It will do so without advancing any telecommunications policy objective." Axia points out in its application that the CRTC approved Telus' broadband expansion plans to 86 communities in Alberta, but that 69 of them are already served with SuperNet's transport facilities. In addition, Axia says 19 communities already served by ISPs using SuperNet facilities: 15 for residential high-speed Internet and business service in four communities. The SuperNet owner wants the commission to vary its decision by preventing Telus from accessing deferral account funds to build duplicate transport facilities to communities already served by SuperNet. In the alternative, Telus shouldn't be allowed to draw down deferral account money to expand broadband service to the 19 communities previously approved by the CRTC and already served by the provincial broadband network. Axia's appeal comes as Bell Canada plans to take the controversial decision all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Deferral account ruling appealed again

News | April 22, 2008

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