OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has sided with the third party internet service providers in their defence of the August 2019 CRTC decision which lowered wholesale rates they pay to the incumbent telcos and cablecos – and established retroactive payments dating back several years.
It was a unanimous 3-0 decision and grants the respondents (the independents) their legal costs, too.
Companies like TekSavvy and Distributel and Start.ca serve tens of thousands of Canadians by leasing space on the networks of Bell, Rogers, Telus, Cogeco and the like and when the CRTC set the new rates with that decision, the incumbents appealed to the court (which also stayed the rates at the old interim payments), cabinet and back to the CRTC.
This means the resellers have a big win (because the rates stay is also now gone) albeit just round one, with several more to go, since the appeal to the CRTC (called a Review & Vary) is still awaiting a decision and cabinet has already indicated in its response to the incumbents’ appeal that it doesn’t exactly like the original Commission decision.
Expect the incumbents to seek leave to appeal this Federal Court decision to the Supreme Court of Canada – and to seek a stay in enacting the new rates from the Commission itself as the industry awaits its decision on the Review & Vary.
If you want to see more on Cartt.ca’s extensive reporting on this issue, please search “TPIA”.
More to come on this as we read more of the decision and speak with service providers.
