Bell and Telus resist CRTC order to share higher broadband speeds with competitors

Bell Canada's call for a full public proceeding on defining next-generation networks (NGNs) and the terms of competitors' access to them is nothing more than a tactic to delay giving competitors access to higher-speed Internet services, CyberSurf Corp. and MTS Allstream Inc. have charged. The two companies tell the CRTC in separate filings that Bell is twisting the meaning of Telecom Decision 2008-117 to avoid having to follow it. They also take aim at Telus Corp. for suggesting the decision only refers to existing retail high-speed Internet services and not new higher speed broadband services going forward. Decision 2008-117, rendered on December 11, 2008, ordered all incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) to file tariffs for competitor access to higher-speed Internet services after Cybersurf filed a Part VII on the matter last summer. Bell has since refused to file tariffs for any service other than those delivered over copper facilities. "Bell's bald-faced refusal to comply with paragraph 25 of Decision 2008-117 and the commission process have allowed what should have been a simple enforcement matter to morph into a proceeding in which Bell and Telus are asking the commission to undo the very finding made and the very issues addressed by the commission in Decision 2008-117," MTS tells the CRTC. "Both Bell and Telus' positions in this proceeding are clearly based on a concerted strategy of delay." According to CyberSurf and MTS, the CRTC doesn't need another process on wholesale service regulation, particularly when the last review was completed less than a year ago. "The commission would be upsetting the regulatory certainty that was supposed to be achieved by Decision 2008-17; and that was mandated by the Policy Direction," CyberSurf writes. "To suggest that after less than a year the conditions exist for another review of wholesale regulation is absurd. It achieves for Bell what it tried to accomplish, and failed to do in a Federal Court; effectively nullifying Decision 2008-17 and creating the conditions for forbearance on the basis of a new service or technology deployments." In its filing to the commission, Bell goes into great detail about how it provides wholesale ADSL services. It describes how older DSL services are provided using DSLAMS installed in a central location in the neighbourhood. Newer and higher speed DSL services are offered by installing the DSLAMs "deeper" into the neighbourhood. This latter network description is what the company refers to as fibre to the node (FTTN) and does include the use of copper facilities. Bell maintains that the CRTC couldn't have meant all higher-speed Internet services in Decision 2008-117 because the apparent planned proceeding on NGN services wouldn't be required. "Such an interpretation would render the commission's planned NGN proceeding moot as it would effectively decide, with virtually no record, what constitutes an NGN," the company writes. "This cannot have been the commission's intention in establishing the copper facilities exception to the Matching Principle in Decision 2008-117." Telus says that including new higher speed Internet services is not what the commission intended. "At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars of capital investment, past and future, by the ILECs, and the future provision of new innovative services," the company writes. The forced sharing of new broadband services with competitors is contrary to the requirement of the policy direction, to rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible, and is contrary to the key Canadian telecommunications policy objective of stimulating research and development and encouraging innovation in the provision of telecommunications services."

Bell and Telus resist CRTC order to share higher broadband speeds with competitors

News | February 9, 2009

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