By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Bell on Wednesday filed a Part 1 application asking the CRTC to strike a decision it made this month that would allow the regulator to collect millions more dollars for a $750-million Broadband Fund that allegedly has yet to distribute the majority of existing funds it has.
The CRTC said in a 2022 revenue-percent charge decision on December 15 that it will collect from service providers $150 million next year for the fund intended to connect more underserved areas with high-speed internet. Increasing amounts of money for the fund is collected on an annual basis, with $100 million in year one, $125 million in year two, $150 million in the year three in question, $175 million in year four and $200 million in year five deposited and drawn from the National Contribution Fund (NCF).
But in the Part 1 application posted on the CRTC website today, Bell said the regulator should not be collecting anymore money until it distributes the existing amounts it collected in previous years. As of the end of this month, Bell estimates that the CRTC will have distributed just $46 million for BF projects since 2020, awarding but not yet distributing $181 million that it has already collected from the industry. It will have collected but not awarded $148 million, Bell estimates.
“The Commission has obviously collected more money from the industry than it can possibly distribute in the next two years,” Bell said in its application. “This is an incongruence that must be remedied. In fact, the Commission should only collect amounts from contribution fee-payers that it will distribute in a given year, consistent with its longstanding practice with respect to other programs that make use of contributions.”
Bell is ultimately asking for the CRTC to release the $148 million that hasn’t been awarded back to the fee payers and to “immediately cease collecting additional contributions” until the regulator “has concluded the policy review of the fund it intends to conduct in 2023.” The CRTC said it would do a review of the fund next year.
“The Commission erred in concluding that $150 million must be collected in 2023 to achieve the fund’s intended purpose and that any uncalled contribution associated with the unpaid portion of the Broadband Fund must be retained by the NCF for future payments,” Bell said.
Factoring the outstanding amounts still in CRTC coffers, Bell said “neither the uncalled contributions from the past nor the incremental contributions in 2023 are necessary to achieve the fund’s intended purpose. This represents an error in fact.”
Late last month, the CRTC announced a third call for applications from the fund, which focuses on transport infrastructure projects, mobile wireless infrastructure projects along major roads, and projects requiring operational funding to increase satellite transport capacity in satellite-dependent communities.
Bell said the lag between getting the paperwork done and disbursements for this latest round “is unlikely” to occur before 2025 at the current pace.
