TORONTO – Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc. (CNOC) is appealing two CRTC decisions around wholesale Internet rates plus wants greater transparency in the regulatory process going forward.
Referring to the Commission’s usage-based billing decision which adopted a capacity-based rate structure alongside the traditional flat rate model for wholesale Internet services, CNOC called the capacity-based rates approved for incumbents Bell, Cogeco, Rogers and Videotron “inflated”, which therefore makes it difficult for independent Internet service providers to compete.
“The rates struck under the two decisions were made by the CRTC using a considerable amount of information filed in confidence by incumbents that interested parties, such as CNOC, could not view and comment on”, CNOC said Friday in a statement. “This greatly hampered the ability of interveners to analyze and participate fully in the regulatory discourse leading to the decisions.”
CNOC board chair and president William Sandiford called on the Commission’s rate setting process to be redone “in a more transparent manner”, similar to that used by the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.
“While the old process for rate setting in which a considerable amount of confidential incumbent information was filed in confidence with the CRTC and interveners were not granted access may have worked in the past, this process does not work now”, he said in the statement. “In the Internet era, wholesale rates are very sensitive to the inputs used to derive those rates and market conditions can change rapidly. In this environment a new balance must be struck between protecting the competitively sensitive information of incumbents and enabling interveners to participate in a full and meaningful manner in the regulatory process.”
