TORONTO – While not officially kicking its chief rival when it’s down, Rogers offered up a few thoughts of its own on the CRTC’s decision on deferral accounts.
“One problem with the (deferral account disbursement process) is that it went to court, and so there’s about a four year delay between when the (underserved) communities were approved and when they got built”, said SVP of regulatory, Ken Engelhart, in an interview with Cartt.ca. “What the CRTC really should have done was review all of the communities to make sure that they weren’t subsidizing Bell to go into some place that already (had broadband access) in the intervening four years.”
Rogers noted that in its filing to the Commission on the issue, it said that Bell’s HSPA (high speed packet access) proposal, which was turned down by the CRTC, “violates the Commission directives by not excluding areas where equivalent services are available or soon will be available based on firm plans of competitors”.
It also reminded the CRTC of its plans to partner with TBay Tel to offer HSPA technology and new mobility products to residents of northern Ontario, as Cartt.ca reported, and included a link to a map of areas where it already provides HSPA service, some of which are included in Bell’s list of underserved areas.
Rogers’ filing said that “it would be patently anti-competitive and contrary to the earlier CRTC directives should Bell receive a subsidy for roughly 88% of the costs of its HSPA network in locations where competitors already provide broadband services over HSPA networks or have firm plans to construct HSPA networks.”
“Bell should have been directed to spend the money, not in deep suburbs, but in truly remote places where there won’t be coverage for a long time”, Engelhart added. “I understand why it’s in Bell’s interest to build the deep suburbs, but they’re going to get coverage anyway. I think that would have been smarter.”
