GATINEAU – The Telecommunications Act allows the CRTC to order “telecommunications facilities to be provided, constructed, installed, altered, moved, operated, used, repaired or maintained on any property.”
Furthermore, “No Canadian carrier or distribution undertaking shall construct a transmission line on, over, under or along a highway or other public place without the consent of the municipality or other public authority having jurisdiction over the highway or other public place.”
In that context, the Commission has had to resolve conflicts that arose over the years between some municipalities and carriers. The general rule is a municipality is compensated for its costs incurred by this activity but it’s not quite that simple.
So, in consultation with various parties, the Regulator came up with a model municipal access agreement (MAA) back in 2013 to facilitate discussion between parties and while that helped, the relationship between municipalities and carriers can become acrimonious. Carriers can break up roads to lay down fibre lines while municipalities can delay the deployment of networks.
This is how, in April 2017, the CRTC received an application from the City of Gatineau which requested approval of the terms and conditions of a proposed (MAA) with Bell, Cogeco, Rogers, Telus and Vidéotron. The city indicated it had been in negotiations with the carriers over the previous few years, but still some aspects had not been agreed upon.
On May 3rd 2017, the carriers requested the Commission stay the analysis of Gatineau’s application until the Quebec Superior Court ruled on the constitutionality of Gatineau’s municipal bylaw 718-2012, which governs the activities on city-owner property by telecom companies. The Commission denied the request. As well, on June 16th, 2017, the carriers filed a review and vary application challenging that CRTC decision. The Commission denied the review and vary application, too.
While the parties, in the meantime, were able to resolve some parts of the MAA, the Commission still had to decide on a few issues in a decision published on September 6th, 2019. The City of Gatineau declared victory.
The CRTC decided the carriers are required to provide notification only with respect to the “replacement of above-ground equipment without adding more plant or significantly increasing the size of existing plant (pole replacements excluded),” and, “pulling cable through an existing underground duct when the work does not involve breaking up or otherwise disturbing the physical surface of municipal rights of ways (ROW)”
Also, “the Carriers are required to obtain road occupancy permits only for ‘the installation of aerial plant (excluding aerial service drops)’.”
The City of Gatineau will also have to compensate the carriers when the municipality requests companies relocate their equipment, but on a sliding scale depending o the age of the equipment – another victory for the municipality.
Finally, the CRTC approved the increased rate structure proposed by Gatineau for issuing and renewing municipal approval.
The Municipality did not respond to Cartt.ca but in a quote in the local paper, the president of the executive committee of Gatineau, Cedric Tessier said “we were not the only municipality in this file but we initiated it and went to the CRTC and many municipalities were waiting for the outcome of this decision.”
It is expected the gains made by the City of Gatineau will impact future agreements in other municipalities. Although the revenues will not be important, they are likely to provide for a better, clearer relationship between carriers and municipalities.
Finally, however, the tensions noticed in this file do not bode well for future 5G equipment that will need to be deployed on municipal properties, by the thousands.
