But has to fight Bell for it at the CRTC
MONTREAL –Vidéotron said last week it plans to offer consumers and small businesses in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue “a full line of telecommunications services, including Internet, television and IP telephone service” by the end of 2019.
The western Quebec region of 145,000 (most of whom live in the cities of Rouyn-Noranda and Val-d’Or, but are spread over 57,000 sq. km.) is primarily served now by Cablevision du Nord, a cable company and ISP which is owned by Bell Canada.
The interesting part of this story is how Vidéotron plans to service the region: as a third party internet access (TPIA) provider. While “Vidéotron plans to increase its fibre investments in the region,” a company spokesperson told Cartt.ca in an email, it plans to use “the last mile network of a regional operator (Cablevision) to reach local households.”
The communities it plans to serve after the two towns mentioned above are launched, include Témiscamingue, La Sarre and Ville Marie.
This is believed to be the first time a large, vertically-integrated, facilities-based company has decided to expand to another region by choosing to become a TPIA on a competitor’s network, instead of building out new facilities. Other noted TPIA providers include TekSavvy, Distributel and VMedia, among others.
“Unfortunately, Abitibi-Témiscamingue residents and small businesses have been ill-served when it comes to telecommunications because of weak competition in the local market, an abnormal situation that has persisted for years,” says the Vidéotron press release as the reason behind its move north. “Vidéotron is therefore confident that it will be able to change the telecom landscape in the region and deliver substantial benefits to the community.”
The Quebecor Media owned cable/ISP/wireless brand already offers some mobile telephone service and specialized business services for large companies in the region but according to documents filed with the CRTC last week, Cablevision will not sign an agreement to allow Vidéotron to begin offering services in the region as a TPIA.
In a Part 1 application to the CRTC, Vidéotron says the two have agreed on most terms of a TPIA agreement after first meeting about this in October 2018, but that the Bell Canada division is dragging its heels on completing the deal, which it calls “a blatant abuse on the part of a incumbent supplier who is obviously seeking to block competition in its market,” says its application, which we’ve translated from French. It wants the CRTC to deal with its request in an expedited manner, demanding Cablevision be forced to respond within 10 days of the July 10th Part 1 filing.
However, the battle boils down to wholesale tarrif rates (Ed note: When does it not?). Vidéotron filed a second Part 1 application with the Commission last week to ensure the wholesale rates Cablevision wishes to charge are in step with rates applied to other large cable companies.
Vidéotron says Cablevision’s rates should be the ones mandated by the CRTC when it set interim rates for disaggregated wholesale high-speed access services in Ontario and Quebec, but the second Part 1 application states Cablevision believes that 2017 decision doesn't apply to them.
The Vidéotron application says everything has been agreed upon, but “the only missing element is Cablevision's compliance with its tariff obligations,” reads the application, in French.
“Vidéotron’s arrival on the scene as a full-fledged player will give local residents access to the best on the market,” said Jean-François Pruneau, president and CEO of Vidéotron, in the company’s press release announcing Vidéotron is coming to Abitibi-Témiscamingue. “In addition to giving consumers real choice, we offer a unique customer experience and state-of-the-art products and services. I’m proud and I’m happy for the region.”
There will obviously be more to come in this new front in the ongoing battles between Quebecor and Bell.
