CRTC tells Bell it has to build outside meet-me points

BCE Inc. must have a point to which other internet service providers (ISPs) can connect outside of its central offices, the CRTC reaffirmed Wednesday as it denied a review-and-vary application by the company. Bell had asked to eliminate the requirement in the CRTC’s disaggregated wholesale internet access regime that specified incumbent telcos have to build a meet-me point to which small ISPs could connect outside the telco’s central office, instead of co-location, or physically connecting inside the central office building. The regulator rolled out the new disaggregated system earlier this year. Bell had argued building that infrastructure outside brings additional risks, such as from cars or bad weather, that aren’t present inside the building, and would unfairly affect telcos in comparison to cablecos, who already use meet-me points because they can’t allow access to their network’s equivalent of a central office. In response, small ISPs said granting Bell’s request and mandating co-location would harm competition, imposing costs on small ISPs that would then be passed onto end users. The two parties disagreed on how much co-location would cost versus using a meet-me point, the CRTC noted Wednesday. Its own estimates concluded that the outdoor option “is cheaper for competitors than the co-location option over one-, three-, and five-year periods, even considering the lower charges in the range provided by Bell Canada,” and the overall charges for co-location would increase over time due to monthly charges that don’t exist with meet-me points. “The comparison also indicates that the longer the interconnection period, the greater the savings under the outside meet-me point option. Further, the costs to competitors will increase based on the number of central offices to which they interconnect,” the decision said, noting the regulator initially decided on the meet-me point requirement because it would cheaper for smaller ISPs. The CRTC also said that although imposing the requirement on telcos doesn’t create symmetry between cablecos and telcos when it comes the number of interconnection methods they have to make available, it makes “essentially equivalent options available to competitors to the greatest extent permitted by the technologies and network architectures at play.” That symmetry could not have been obtained by requiring cablecos to offer co-location because their facilities don’t have the space, it added. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Bryson Masse at bmasse@thewirereport.ca

CRTC tells Bell it has to build outside meet-me points

News | December 20, 2017

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CRTC tells Bell it has to build outside meet-me points

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