By Ahmad Hathout
The CRTC said Monday that there isn’t enough evidence on the record to show that Bell is imposing on Quebecor an undue disadvantage by allegedly forcing disproportionate wholesale transport charges on its subsidiary.
Quebecor filed an application over two years ago claiming that Bell has been forcing its subsidiary, Fibernoire, to renew a wholesale fibre transport agreement on terms that would allegedly subject it to an undue disadvantage: better prices in exchange for a long-term contract and a commitment to minimum annual revenues – which Bell says is a common practice that provides revenue and price certainty – or higher monthly prices for no commitment.
Quebecor said the prices it would have to pay now would far exceed those that its Videotron subsidiary Fibrenoire had to pay before the previous agreement expired. The result, Quebecor alleges, is that it will not be able to honour its price commitments to customers and, in fact, will just lose them to Bell, which it alleges holds a dominant position in some of the markets in question. Quebecor says it cannot find alternative transport links in these areas and it is prohibitively expensive to build its own.
The commission, which has historically refrained from regulating this space, said Monday that it has not been able to validate some of Quebecor’s allegations related to the price increases to which it has allegedly been subjected.
“Although the application referred to a minimum annual revenue commitment between Bell Canada and Fibrenoire, the record of this proceeding does not contain enough information on this commitment,” the CRTC said. “The Commission is therefore not able to compare this commitment between Bell Canada and Fibrenoire with those proposed by Bell Canada to Quebecor in these recent offers. The Commission is also not able to validate some of Quebecor’s allegations, particularly those regarding the difference in increases.”
The CRTC also said it’s not clear if the cost increase is associated with the same terms and conditions as those for Fibernoire because the previous deal dealt with volume commitments related to circuits while the new proposal deals with minimum annual revenue commitments, and the commission said it’s uncertain how the volume translates to revenue for Bell.
The regulator also notes that while the record reflects two offers from Bell, there is reference to several offers and counter-offers, and it therefore doesn’t have insight into how the situation has progressed.
In any event, the CRTC said it will deal with issues related to the availability of competitive transport services in a separate proceeding emanating from its last year’s decision on the final wholesale internet framework.
Quebecor did not respond to a request for comment in time for publishing.
Videotron also filed a complaint on this matter to the Competition Bureau early last year.
