OTTAWA – Bluewater TV Cable must stop providing telephone service to customers in neighbouring Tuckersmith Co-operative’s operating territory, the CRTC has ruled.
After receiving a complaint from independent telco Tuckersmith in September, the Commission investigated allegations that Bluewater was providing local exchange service in Tuckersmith’s Bayfield 565 exchange, using numbers assigned to the neighbouring Bell Canada Clinton 482 exchange, and was not registered as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) for the area.
Bluewater argued it had not actively marketed its telephone service outside of its authorized CLEC area, but agreed to supply telephone service using its cable television facilities to 12 customers in the Bayfield area who had approached it. Bluewater also said that, as it planned to register as a CLEC in the Bayfield exchange within months, it felt that it could provide local exchange service to customers in that exchange in the interim, much like resellers or some voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers do when providing nomadic VoIP service.
But the Commission disagreed, saying cable carriers must first become CLECs in areas where they plan to provide local exchange service, and as Bluewater is a cable carrier, it may not compare its provisioning of local exchange service to that of resellers and nomadic VoIP service providers.
So, Bluewater has been instructed to cease offering telephone service in this area, and ensure that the affected customers are reconnected to Tuckersmith.
