GATINEAU – Mandating Internet Protocol interconnection for voice services is unnecessary because doing so will not bring any additional benefits to consumers, three of the country’s incumbent telcos told the CRTC during its first day of hearings into the interconnection regime.
In its opening remarks, Bell Canada said that “no regulatory intervention is required to push the market towards IP interconnection” and that “the market will naturally drive this migration without any need for regulatory intervention,” explained Jonathan Daniels, VP of regulatory law at Bell.
He acknowledged that the company’s network is capable of providing IP voice to most of its customers, but noted that “there won’t be any benefits to end users from mandatory IP interconnection.” It’s important to remember, added Bell, that vast majority of interconnections are done over legacy TDM networks (circuit-switched technology) and since this method works just fine, it makes no sense to mandate IP interconnection for voice services.
Bell would like to see a market-based approach to IP interconnection rather than something imposed by the Commission. If there is a business case for the introduction of IP interconnection, then Bell will adopt it.
“In the future, if there is some new service that we want to offer then we’re going to want to have those IP interconnections at least for those customers so that it can work,” explained Daniels. “If there is a business case to do it… of course we’re going to quickly make an IP interconnection arrangement to make sure it happens.”
Telus Corp. agreed with Bell that mandating IP interconnection is the wrong move and consumers will not see any benefits from such a move. This would imply that the circuit-switched interconnection regime is “an outdated form or interconnection depriving Canadians of the benefits of IP networks. This fear is both misplaced and contradicted by the facts,” said Zouhier Mansourati, Telus’ VP of network technology and planning.
“IP interconnection does not change the nature of voice services because it does not facilitate any higher grade of voice service that is not already possible today,” he added. “The voice service that will be carried between network providers is based on the service available on circuit-switched technology.”
Daniels argued that doing so would shift costs from IP operators to TDM operators and those capital expenditures could be significant. “These could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and it must be stressed, we would see zero return on our investment because taking on IP interconnection neither brings our subscribers anything, more lowers our costs,” he said.
While Bell said there is no business case to move to IP interconnection , SaskTel argued the technology isn’t ready for prime time yet and that more work needs to be done in this area. Contrary to what some may suggest, the provincial Crown corp. noted, the company is not trying to stand in the way of technological progress and in fact is investing hundreds of millions in IP networks.
During its own IP to IP interconnection efforts, SaskTel has discovered some technical difficulties with voice services. “We have been looking at a number of these features and we have not been able at this point to bring this to our satisfaction to be able to replicate what we have on the PSTN,” said Bob Hersche, directory of regulatory affairs at SaskTel, in response to a question from CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein.
With respect to IP interconnection in fibre to the home deployments, there has been some success with basic features, but SaskTel is experiencing some difficulties with advanced options such as call waiting, selective call accept, 911 call control and some components of voice mail. Commissioner Suzanne Lamarre asked for clarification on this.
“What we’re finding is because we have different vendors in our own internal networks… that some of those features do not work the way the customers have been experiencing them today. So what we’re trying to do is to find a solution so that they will have the same customer experience and the same recognition of all those features,” said Andrew McKay, from SaskTel’s regulatory affairs division.
For small providers, regulatory intervention by the CRTC is required. The Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) said IP interconnection must be mandated. “This is to overcome the ILECs’ reluctance to co-operate with respect to such matters and also to ensure that the principles of technological and competitive neutrality are observed when IP to IP network interconnection is implemented,” said CNOC lawyer Chris Tacit.
Asked why there is such divergent views on IP interconnection, Tacit noted that the ILECs are hesitant because they would be forced to innovate. They aren’t necessarily interested in promoting the type of innovation that takes place at the edges of the network because there would be increased pressure on them to innovate, he added.
Bill Sandiford, president of CNOC and president of Telnet Communications, said that just because the ILECs still rely on TDM interconnection for voice services doesn’t mean that competitors do. In fact, Telnet has no TDM interconnection.
“So don’t allow the ILECs saying say there’s no access lines on IP to fool you,” he said. None of theirs [are], everybody else’s is.”
The hearing continues tomorrow with MTS Allstream, Bragg Communications, Rogers Communications and the small ILECs appearing.
