Rogers says it is fully compliant with MDU rules
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – Fibre service provider Beanfield is asking the CRTC to prohibit Rogers from signing bulk service agreements with residential buildings that it alleges serves to limit competition.
Bulk service agreements are multi-year contracts one service provider has with the developer of a building to provide default internet service to all tenants of the building, meaning the residents pay for a single provider’s internet through their rent or fees.
In a Part 1 application dated September 20, Beanfield argues that while those Rogers agreements don’t prevent other service providers from accessing the building, it allegedly limits access to users because they have little incentive to switch ISPs when they are already paying for the provider’s internet through their mandatory fees.
Beanfield argues this is especially egregious because it’s the developer of the building, not the condo board, who signs the contract – meaning the board just inherits the terms of an entrenched agreement.
“Beanfield submits that Bulk Agreements effectively eliminate end-user choice, constitute an undue advantage and should be deemed to be contrary to the MDU Access Condition,” the Part 1 said.
Beanfield also alleges that the Rogers contracts limit how third parties provide and market services directly to the tenants.
“The Sample Marketing Agreement, in providing an exclusive rather than a preferred marketing arrangement to Rogers, has the effect of limiting access by other providers, and is contrary to the MDU Access Condition,” Beanfield alleges.
Rogers said in a statement to Cartt that, “Our agreements fully comply with the CRTC’s Multi-Dwelling Unit Access Framework. We are reviewing the application and will file a response by October 26.”
Beanfield admits it signed a bulk arrangement contract for a Toronto Waterfront development in 2011 because the request specifically asked for that type of arrangement.
It said it has asked for future phases of the development to be open to service provider competition.
“We did so because, over the course of the past 5 years, despite the increasing ubiquity of fibre network deployment, what had been a rare and targeted practice only occurring in exceptional circumstances has become increasingly, and disturbingly, common and entrenched,” Beanfield said, adding it raised the issue in its submission on the CRTC’s review of the wholesale internet framework.
Beanfield claims that such agreements make up “close to half” of all new multi-dwelling unit developments in the Greater Toronto Area, which it said is Canada’s largest condo market. “And the dominant provider in, and concluder of, such Bulk Agreements appears to be Rogers,” Beanfield said, claiming the cable company occupies 78 per cent of those agreements out of 37 buildings, with rest appearing to go to Bell.
Even after the bulk contract expires, the incumbent would have entrenched itself and been able to pay for the cost of building the network, Beanfield says.
That means meaning it could “outbid any carrier on any bulk renewal or be in a position to price compete if the bulk arrangement ends and other carriers enter, not to mention having years of first access and monopolistic advantage – not only in terms of its provision of internet service, but television, home phone, cellular phone and home security services as well,” Beanfield said.
Beanfield says it is aware of 54 planned or in progress developments in the GTA representing almost 40,000 units with nine different developers that “appear to be already locked into bulk agreements.”
Last year, the Federal Communications Commission in the United States ruled that ISPs in multi-dwelling units cannot enter exclusive revenue-sharing arrangements with landlords and must disclose the existence to tenants of exclusive marketing arrangements.
