GATINEAU – Yak Communications and Wind Mobile (both of which are owned by Globalive) believe that equal access on wireline and wireless may have outlived its useful purpose. Representatives for the companies made the comments before the CRTC on Wednesday as part its interconnection hearing.
Ed Antecol, VP of regulatory and carrier relations for both Yak and Wind, reiterated comments made on Tuesday by Rogers that the cost of doing equal access long distance for wireless doesn’t make economic sense. Yak connects to four Fido switches, yet derives a very small amount of monthly revenue – about $6,000 – from equal access LD, he added in response to a question from CRTC vice-chair of telecom Len Katz.
“We have to pay for the interconnections, the terminating costs of that traffic, the billing and collection fees,” Antecol said. “Would I go out and seek to interconnect to any other Fido switches to provide equal access more broadly? Today, I wouldn’t. It’s simply not a growing (business). It’s strictly not a profitable venture when I figure in the interconnection costs that I pay as an IXC (inter-exchange carrier).”
Asked Katz: “On the wireline side, do you see a day when equal access will no longer be required or necessary because…long distance is not sold a-la-carte anymore?”
Antecol acknowledged that stand alone LD is eroding, but added that he’d like to delay that as long as possible so as to recover the investment.
“Just because it’s eroding, I see that as no reason to abandon it,” he said. “On the wireless side, I take (Rogers Communications VP of regulatory telecommunications) Dave Watt’s point that, would you cause that investment in the wireless industry today for equal access? Not sure. I don’t think it’s worthwhile as an endeavour, given where things are heading and given the upfront expensive implementation.”
Mandate IP interconnection
Yak and Wind joined with other parties calling the mandating of IP to IP interconnection for voice services, noting that where the ILECs have demonstrated an ability to do IP interconnection it should be made available to all parties.
Commissioner Suzanne Lamarre wondered if Yak’s request would meet all the objectives of the Telecommunications Act and whether granting the company’s wish would force early investment on the ILECs.
Antecol said that Yak is worried that the ILECs will choose to do IP interconnection among themselves first while leaving it to the last minute for the small competitors.
“If they’ve made the investment to offer it to some others – they’ve got a demonstrated ability to offer the IP interconnection – then we’re saying you should mandate it on some basis so that we can all have a chance,” he said. “I don’t think we’re being inconsistent with the objectives of the Act when we’re asking for a chance to be treated fairly.”
The question of IP interconnection interoperability came up during the questioning of Yak and Wind. Ante Rupcic, VP of core networks for Wind, noted that advancing interoperability will bring advantages just as it did for text messaging more than a decade ago. He explained that by advancing SMS interoperability in the UK, the wireless industry was able to realize huge gains. The same will hold true here if IP interconnection interoperability is furthered.
“The entire industry saw a boom in messaging, a boom in usage [and] a boom in revenues. What’s important to learn there is interoperability facilitated that,” he said.
Rupcic suggested there is already a substantially large installed base of IP-enabled end user devices today and leveraging that with interoperability innovation will benefit everyone.
“When they do interoperate… that facilitates ease of use between customers on the different networks, that will facilitate richer multimedia services, that will facilitate innovation between customers on different carriers and it will increase usage [and] revenues for all,” he said.
