OTTAWA – Telus Communications may not charge for service poles that it doesn’t own, says the CRTC.
In a decision issued Friday, the Commission found that Telus is prohibited by its Support Structure Service tariff from charging licensees for service poles it does not own, unless the company has an agreement through which it has the right to provide licensees with access to those poles and, hence, exercises control over those poles.
Responding to a complaint from Raftview Communications dated July 24, 2014, the CRTC directed Telus to withdraw all invoices and/or provide refunds to Raftview, as appropriate, in accordance with Telus’ Terms of Service, for payments related to privately owned service poles that it does not control. Further, the onus is on Telus to demonstrate that it has an agreement in place through which the company controls privately owned service poles prior to invoicing a licensee for charges on those poles, the decision continued.
Telus must also apply the findings in this decision to any other similarly placed licensees.
