OTTAWA – The country’s largest cable companies want the CRTC to treat them the same as Bell and Telus. At least, as far as the Commission’s rules on speed matching go.
In a petition submitted to Cabinet last week, Cogeco, Quebecor on behalf of Videotron, Rogers and Shaw asked that the Governor in Council vary, rescind, or refer back to the Commission its decision on Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-632 issued on August 30, 2010.
That decision, as Cartt.ca reported, was based on a public proceeding launched in May 2009 to consider whether incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) and cable carriers should be required to offer certain high-speed access facilities as new wholesale services to competitors, for use when competitors provide their Internet services to their own customers. At that time, the Commission also reaffirmed an earlier decision to require the cable carriers to similarly offer wholesale services to their competitors that match the speeds of Internet access services offered by cable carriers to their customers at the retail level.
Bell and Telus have petitioned the Governor in Council to vary the speed-matching decisions to eliminate the requirement to unbundle and offer on a wholesale basis any new services, speeds or functionality beyond those for which wholesale tariffs were already in place as of the date of Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-17, March 3, 2008. They say that speed-matching requirements will undermine their incentives to invest by destroying the business case for upgrading networks
In their petition, the cable carriers maintain that any variations to the speed matching decisions must also apply to them.
“It is essential for purposes of competitive equity and technological neutrality that the two groups of carriers to be treated in a similar manner with respect to these requirements”, the petition reads. “Either the speed-matching requirements should apply to both the ILECs and the cable carriers – or to neither type of carrier.”
– Lesley Hunter
