OTTAWA – An Internet based initiative launched today called ‘Campaign for Competitive Broadband’ is hoping to overturn a CRTC decision that campaign organizers say will stifle competition in broadband Internet, Ethernet and other next generation communications services in Canada.
Spearheaded by MTS Allstream, the campaign’s goal is “to ensure that network facilities built with the benefit of a historic monopoly and guaranteed rate of return, are accessible to a wide range of competitors who want to offer choice in services to businesses and consumers,” the press release reads.
Bell and Telus, which control these networks in most parts of the country, would have the ability to shut out competitors if the CRTC decision is allowed to stand, the release continues, in reference to the Commission’s decisions to modify the wholesale classification of Ethernet and asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) services.
"Canadian small and medium size businesses pay the most expensive prices for high-speed broadband among all OECD countries, except for the Slovak Republic, and this CRTC decision would only make things worse,” said MTS Allstream chief corporate officer Chris Peirce, in the release. “It would open the door to a re-monopolization of the kind of telecom services that are critical to the success and competitiveness of businesses across Canada. Bell and Telus would be better off, everyone else will be a loser."
The Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) is also a member of the Coalition for Competitive Broadband, the group behind the campaign and web site www.competitivebroadband.com.
"The competitive framework for broadband Internet services is hanging by a thread as a result of the CRTC decision" said CAIP chair Tom Copeland, in a statement. “Independent service providers, in many cases, are the engine that is driving broadband expansion and coverage to small communities who may otherwise be overlooked in a single-supplier market. There must be a realization in the federal cabinet that a retreat to monopoly conditions will erode the natural incentive for expansion and innovation that only competition can provide.”
But Telus called the notion that broadband rates will skyrocket untrue, and said that the coalition’s message “is nothing more than a mélange of half truths, innuendo and outright fabrication aimed at undermining new billion dollar investments in NGNs (next generation networking),” said Telus’ SVP of government and regulatory affairs Michael Hennessy in an e-mail to Cartt.ca.
“What these competitors want is access to our new investments below market rates, even as we are spending more in each of Quebec and Ontario than MTS invested nationally this year," he wrote. "Why build fibre networks if we have to provide them at less than commercial rates?”
Hennessy also called the campaign “a subsidy play”.
The “competitive broadband” website says that it was created to educate Canadians about the issue, and encourages consumers to join an on-line petition and send e-mails to the federal government and their local MP asking for the CRTC decision to be reversed. It also includes a ‘top 10’ list of reasons why the decision should be toppled, and supporting background documents.
MTS Allstream has also filed its own petition to the federal cabinet asking it to “review and vary” the two CRTC decisions. Its earlier requests to the CRTC to do so were denied.
– Lesley Hunter
