OTTAWA – So how fast will we see a complaint filed on this one?
Just yesterday everyone was wondering whether or not Bell Canada’s Digital Voice Lite voice over IP service would be considered an access-independent VOIP product under the new rules announced Wednesday. If so, it would be deregulated.
Today, the CRTC issued a circular today saying yes, in fact, Bell’s nascent VOIP product can be considered access-independent and "that by virtue of the Order in Council the tariffs previously approved by the Commission… are no longer of any force or effect and those services are forborne from regulation to the extent specified in the Order in Council," reads the release.
Besides Bell’s Digital Voice Lite, the company’s Business IP Voice for Broadband option and SaskTel’s WebCall is now also reg-free, it would seem.
The companies can now charge whatever they like for these products, although a search for WebCall on the SaskTel web site turned up no reference to such a service.
The Commission actually received the Order of the Governor in Council on November 9th, directing it to deregulate access-independent VOIP services, which Industry Minister Maxime Bernier announced yesterday in Toronto, as reported by Cartt.ca.
One issue still to be settled is whether or not customers "lost" from Bell’s traditional land-line service to its own Digital Voice Lite service will count against the market loss threshold of 25% set in April’s local forbearance decision. In that decision, once traditional telcos lose 25% of their wireline customers in a certain market, deregulation is automatic as long as the other major condition – properly serving its competition when providing PSTN interconnection – has also been met.
So if Bell traditional is losing customers to Bell VOIP, how will that be viewed?
The ILECs have appealed the local forbearance decision and Cabinet has a year from the decision to rule one way or another on such appeals – and the Commission itself has said it is already re-examining the 25% marker.
Another interesting aspect of the circular and the Order in Council is it says, "in relation to retail local access-independent VoIP services – being a particular class of services – provided by ILECs within their incumbent territories, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission refrain from exercising its powers and performing its duties under section 25, subsections 27(1), (5) and (6) and sections 29 and 31 of that Act to the same extent that it does in relation to retail local telecommunications services provided to end users by CLECs in Telecom Decision CRTC 97-8, Local Competition, and subsequent determinations."
The sections of the Act referenced talk of tariffs and rates only and does not remove the Commission from applying policy where it sees fit, so one wonders whether or not this means access-independent VOIP is completely deregulated or just rate-deregulated with restrictions like the 90-day win-back conditions remaining in place.
We’ll do our best to figure it out.
– Greg O’Brien
