By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC on Friday set the interim rates competitors will pay large telephone companies to use their last-mile fibre network outside of Ontario and Quebec, while adjusting the existing rates for that access in those two provinces. The rates are being received with reception ranging from lukewarm to outright disappointment.
For all provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, the CRTC set Bell’s last-mile interim access rate – which competitors can lease with its middle-mile facilities – at $68.94 per month for between 3 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps and $78.03 for 1.5 Gbps to 3 Gbps. To bulk buy the capacity to serve the area, the CRTC set the capacity-based billing (CBB) rates at $64.24 per 100 Mbps.
For Telus in Alberta and British Columbia, it will need to provide access to all speeds between 15 Mbps and 1.5 Gbps for $80.41 per month, while its CBB rate in those provinces will be $75.86 per 100 Mbps. For Quebec, the CRTC adjusted the interim rate to $65.25 for all speeds and a CBB rate of $75.86 per 100 Mbps.
SaskTel’s rate is $77.57 for all speeds up to 1 Gbps, while its CBB rates are set at $35.76 per 100 Mbps. SaskTel is asking the Federal Court of Appeal to look into whether the CRTC has overstepped its authority to direct it to provide this access. SaskTel declined to comment for this story.
“TekSavvy has been waiting a long time for realistic wholesale fibre rates that will allow us to offer more affordable services to cash-strapped Canadians who pay some of the highest broadband prices in the world, but this decision does not deliver them,” Andy Kaplan-Myrth, vice president of regulatory and carrier affairs for TekSavvy, told Cartt. “These rates remain considerably higher than what some of the big telcos are regularly offering customers at retail. They need to be lower to reflect market realties and to realistically enable competition. This is not how you spur more competition in the market. We are disappointed at the lack of change so far and hope the CRTC issues final fibre rates soon that are significantly lower than these rates.”
A CRTC spokesperson said during a technical briefing Friday that some access rates have been lowered in Ontario and Quebec. The CRTC also ordered the telcos to provide new tariff pages to reflect the rates. “The Commission has already completed much of the underlying analysis necessary to set rates on a final basis; however, over the coming months, Canada’s large telephone companies will need to provide additional information for the Commission to finalize the rates,” the CRTC said in its decision Friday. “The Commission will continue to move quickly to set the terms and conditions and final rates for aggregated wholesale FTTP services.”
“The CRTC’s decision on access to fiber Internet networks is very disappointing,” Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau said in a statement. “We had hoped for a decision that would reflect market realities and allow us to offer Freedom Mobile customers prices that would help lower their telecom bills, as we’ve been doing with wireless services for nearly 18 months. Unfortunately, the CRTC’s decision leaves us no room for maneuver and will prevent us from launching our services on these networks.”
Bell did not respond in time to a request for comment. Rogers said it is reviewing the decision.
Paul Andersen, the chair and president of wholesale competitor rep the Canadian Network Operators of Canada, said the following in a statement: “We appreciate the commission’s recognition of the urgency in establishing a workable fiber-to-the-premise framework for competitors. While today’s announcement of interim rates is a step forward, they may not reflect the final rates our members will ultimately pay for their current services. The real measure of success will come once final rates are set for all incumbents subject to this framework.”
The adjusted rates apply immediately, while the interim rates for the rest of the country will need to be put to use by February 13, 2025. They do not apply to new fibre builds, as those are subject to a five-year moratorium so the telcos can recoup their investment and prepare for competitor access.
Geoff White, the executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, added: “Very good to see the Commission picking up the pace here with the wholesale regime and hopefully on some direct protection measures while the wholesale regime gets tested – and I mean tested in reality and tested maybe before yet another appeal tribunal (Sasktel). The interim rates seem high – and if there’s no take-up by the remaining competitors then that will be an important test of the rates.”
The commission set the rates using historical financials instead of a typical forecasted model because the new fibre builds are not subject to access. “Those future builds tend to include a more expensive network deployment mix than the current FTTP base subject to the final mandate.”
The commission on Friday also said it made adjustments to the telcos’ proposed rates, including removing “any element that could potentially result in double counting for costs already covered in the service charge;” adjusted the service charges to “differentiate between services that require a site visit versus those that do not;” and changed the “life estimates for software” and spread those costs over a 10-year period.
The aggregated access to last-mile fibre will provide competitors with the ability to provide faster speeds to its customers, as well as other services, including television, home phone and home security services.
In August, the CRTC ordered the large telcos – Bell, Telus, and SaskTel – to negotiate with competitors on access to their middle- and last-mile fibre facilities, which effectively broadened to the whole country the aforementioned interim mandate that previously only applied to Bell and Telus and was concentrated in Ontario and Quebec. The commission spared the cable companies from the regime.
Photo via Canada Infrastructure Bank
