By Ahmad Hathout
Every-Day Computers Inc. (Ev-Com) is accusing Telus of blocking its ability to launch a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business.
Ev-Com, a facilities-based carrier operating a fixed-wireless and wholesale internet network in Terrace, British Columbia, says it wants to operate the MVNO with an initial service target being the Highway 16, known as the Highway of Tears. It says it has Tier 4 spectrum licences for the Skeena, Smithers, and Prince George service area and has applied for 3.9 GHz spectrum to “secure a long-term 5G path for this region,” including in rural communities.
Despite being a qualified wireless carrier, Ev-Com says in a Part 1 application to the CRTC, made public Tuesday, that it cannot access Telus’s wireless network to launch the MVNO because the Vancouver-based telecom is allegedly claiming it doesn’t qualify. Telus is telling the company that it is not eligible because it does not have an “active retail customer base,” according to the complaint.
Ev-Com claims that puts the company in a catch-22: Telus is requiring an active retail customer base that Ev-Com cannot get without access to the telco’s network.
“The mandated MVNO framework was designed to enable regional competition, not to create a circular ‘chicken-and-egg’ barrier where a new entrant must launch a national retail service before they can sign the roaming agreement required to make that service viable,” Baljinder Basra, founder, CEO and CTO of Ev-Com, told us. “TELUS is attempting to act as a secondary regulator by auditing our government-issued spectrum licenses and imposing ‘eligibility’ tests that do not exist in the Tariff.”
Ev-Com says without the ability to roam on the telco’s network, there will be areas where its service drops, which is “commercially fatal” to its viability: no customer wants to subscribe to an unreliable service, and launching a broken product to satisfy criteria to roam would damage its brand, it said.
Telus did not respond to a request for comment.
The following sequence of events is claimed in Ev-Com’s complaint: Ev-Com said it reached out to Telus on January 5 to get the ball rolling. Telus said it would engage with the company “once you are eligible.” Three days later, Ev-Com completes its wireless carrier registration with the CRTC and provides the update to Telus. On January 12, Telus provides draft agreements at “above market retail rates,” which Ev-Com calls discriminatory. Two days later, Ev-Com is assigned its mobile network code. On January 16, Telus refuses to execute the agreement, allegedly “Until there is a CRTC confirmation that your specific spectrum holdings entitle you to MVNO service… we are not obligated to negotiate…”
Telus, which has allegedly refused staff-assisted mediation until the CRTC addresses the eligibility question, also allegedly claimed that Ev-Com’s spectrum is “undoubtful” and “unviable” for consumer service given its expiry date of March 31, 2026, but Ev-Com said this is a standard annual renewal date for all spectrum licences. Ev-Com says it is also pursuing transitional spectrum for the 3.9 GHz band.
According to the CRTC’s eligibility paragraph for MVNO service, a regional carrier must be registered with the CRTC, have a home network, and be actively offering mobile wireless services commercially to retail customers.
But Ev-Com says the last stipulation “must be read in harmony” with the CRTC’s original MVNO decision: “It cannot be interpreted to mean that a carrier must build a fully functional national roaming product before it can sign the roaming agreement,” Ev-Com says in its complaint. “Such an interpretation would render the framework useless for new entrants.
“Ev-Com submits that ‘Active Service’ for the purpose of entering the agreement must be defined as **Technical Readiness** (possession of Spectrum, Core, and [mobile network codes]), with the commercial launch following the execution of the agreement,” the complaint continues (emphasis is Ev-Com’s.)
Ev-Com also notes that the CRTC has said that the requirement to enter into an agreement “should not be used by any party as a reason to delay provision of the service.”
“While we are not claiming direct financial damages in terms of lost revenue at this stage, the delay is costing us significant time and opportunity,” Basra told Cartt. “Every month spent arguing about eligibility is a month we cannot spend building infrastructure or serving customers. The real cost is to the community, which remains stuck paying monopoly rates while a viable local alternative is blocked by administrative hurdles.”
Basra said the company has deployed a Magma Core (4G/5G) network and has waitlisted local residents “ready to switch the moment our roaming agreement is signed. Our initial capacity planning is for 5,000 subscribers in the first 12 months.”
Ev-Com is asking the CRTC to direct Telus to sign a commercial agreement within 10 business days of the decision on this matter and to order final offer arbitration on the rate if a reasonable agreement cannot be reached.
Ev-Com also filed an intervention in Telus’s application that accuses Bell of degrading its access to wholesale internet. While Ev-Com agrees that “delays in provisioning and the degradation of service quality are ‘existential threats’ to competition that require urgent Commission intervention,” it alleged in its intervention that this is “precisely the conduct TELUS itself is currently practicing against new entrants in the wireless MVNO market.”
