GATINEAU – Quebecor’s Videotron will be Canada’s fourth national wireless player “if the CRTC creates the right conditions”.
The Montreal-based communications giant used its appearance Friday at the CRTC’s wireless hearing to encourage the Commission to regulate tower sharing and introduce roaming charges that are based on real network usage costs.
"Currently, the rates stipulated by Bill C-31 are based on costs that include equipment subsidies, marketing, customer acquisition, retail and online distribution channels, customer service and debt collection," said Videotron president and CEO Manon Brouillette. "It is unfair and absurd to make new entrants finance the incumbent carriers by supporting their business operations in this way. No new entrant, no matter how financially healthy, can sustain such high roaming charges."
Brouillette also voiced the difficulties that Videotron has encountered in sharing the incumbent carriers' transmission towers, asking the CRTC to address the “inefficiencies that are unduly delaying the expansion of mobile service in Canada” and calling for stricter regulation.
Noting that Videotron has invested more than $1.8 billion in purchasing spectrum and building out its mobile network, Brouillette also urged the CRTC to eschew mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and focus on new facilities-based players that invest in new technology and stimulate innovation by pushing the incumbents to do likewise.
"After all these years of investment in spectrum, infrastructure and development by the new market entrants, it would be illogical and indeed unfair to start favouring MVNOs", she added.
