OTTAWA – The CRTC last week informed Cogeco Communications via a letter it was closing a tariff application proposing revisions to Cogeco’s third-party internet access (TPIA) tariff, and suggested the ISP resubmit the application with additional information required under the commission’s tariff application rules.
In its Sept. 8 application to revise its TPIA tariff, Cogeco said it had started to increase the upload speed of its 360 Mbps and 1 Gbps downstream high-speed retail internet services from 30 Mbps to 100 Mbps, and this increase would be progressively rolled out throughout Cogeco’s serving territory in Ontario and Quebec.
Cogeco also said it would be making available on a wholesale basis these increased upload speeds over DOCSIS-HFC and DOCSIS-RFoG/FTTH through aggregated and disaggregated points of interconnection in Cogeco’s serving areas where an equivalent upload speed is offered on a retail basis. Cogeco noted in its application the increased upload speeds are currently available at some nodes within its serving areas, including in Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Belleville and Kingston in Ontario, and Trois-Rivières in Quebec.
Cogeco’s application said no change to any rate or charge is proposed. It was submitting the application for the CRTC to approve its proposed revised tariff pages showing the increased upload speeds for its various TPIA services.
The CRTC noted in its letter to Cogeco, however, the company had submitted the tariff application as a revision to a previous tariff application in March 2023 in which Cogeco reduced its aggregated TPIA service monthly capacity rate by 10 per cent as per the commission’s directive in its March 2023 notice of consultation regarding its review of the wholesale high-speed access service framework.
The commission said it considers Cogeco’s two tariff applications to be unrelated and it suggested Cogeco refile its tariff revision application as a separate application under a new tariff notice (TN) number. It also said, if Cogeco decided to resubmit the application, the company needed to file both its existing and proposed new or revised tariff pages for the TPIA services in question, which Cogeco had not done in its Sept. 8 tariff application.
The CRTC also said Cogeco’s proposed changes to its tariff pages showing the increased upload speeds of its TPIA services were not correctly annotated. Cogeco had used the symbol to identify the revisions as “new wording, rate or charge”, when it should have used the symbol to indicate “changes in wording where neither an increase nor reduction in rates or charges results there from.” The company should make this change if it refiled its application, the CRTC suggested.
Finally, the commission said Cogeco had not provided a timeframe when the conversion of upload speeds from 30 Mbps to 100 Mbps will be complete across its TPIA services, and this meant there will be a period of time when both 30 Mbps and 100 Mbps upload speeds will be in service simultaneously at different locations in Cogeco’s serving areas. Therefore, Cogeco’s proposed revised tariff pages should list the upload speeds of the TPIA services in question as “30 – 100 Mbps upload” instead of just “100 Mbps upload” as Cogeco had proposed in its tariff revision application, the CRTC said.
The commission concluded its letter to Cogeco by saying the tariff application is now closed.
