By Ahmad Hathout
The Federal Court of Appeal on Tuesday set a date for next month to hear an appeal challenging the CRTC’s decision to choose Quebecor’s rate to access Rogers’s wireless network.
The hearing will begin at 9:30 am on May 28 in Ottawa and will centre on Rogers’s contention that the regulator, in July 2023, chose a rate to access its wireless network during final offer arbitration that was “materially lower” than the rate it proposed, running offside of the “just and reasonable” provision of the Telecommunications Act.
The result, Rogers argues, is that the lower rate will not allow it to recoup its investment, at least in the immediate term.
The CRTC reasoned that it was okay for the cable giant to suffer a “modest or temporary loss” in its wireless segment while its other lines of business were profitable.
The cable giant also asks the court to review the CRTC’s refusal to provide it with Quebecor’s materials so that it could analyze how the Montreal-based company rationalized the rate it proposed to the regulator.
Rogers filed the appeal of way back in August 2023 and the Federal Court of Appeal agreed to hear the case almost exactly a year later.
In April 2021, the CRTC mandated a seven-year regime whereby mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) – those carriers without infrastructure in certain areas – can force negotiations with the larger providers for access to their networks, with the expectation that those MVNOs will generate enough revenue to build their own facilities.
