Northwestel appeals CRTC rate-cut decision, says it needs $8.5M for high speed Internet rollout

By Perry Hoffman

GATINEAU and YELLOWKNIFE – Northwestel has told the CRTC that unless it's allowed to levy a $20 per customer surcharge on standalone residential DSL customers in band H1 communities or receives an exogenous price cap adjustment of $8.5 million, its plans to continue a rollout of 15/1 Mbps Internet service to 42 more communities is in jeopardy.The company's comments come in an appeal of Telecom Decision 2015-78 in which the commission ordered Northwestel to stop charging standalone DSL customers an extra fee and to cut lower-speed retail Internet rates by 10% and higher-speed ones by 30%. The revenue shortfall resulting...