The CRTC told Cogeco in a letter last week to maintain TekSavvy’s access to its network, after the latter informed the commission that Cogeco was on the verge of decommissioning copper facilities that TekSavvy currently relies on to provide internet service to customers in Ontario.
The CRTC has instructed Cogeco to continue providing wholesale access to TekSavvy either by maintaining existing hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) wholesale infrastructure at four Ontario locations targeted for decommissioning or by providing TekSavvy access to newly installed fibre facilities at the current HFC available speed and rates. Cogeco is to confirm in writing before March 27 that this access will be preserved.
The regulator had already determined in response to previous TekSavvy applications that decommissioning of older technologies would be bad news for competitors. That determination came two days after the release of its final wholesale internet framework in August 2024, in which it said it would hold a proceeding to determine the broader impact of copper decommissioning on wholesale competitors. That proceeding is yet to come.
The decommissioning of legacy facilities is also the subject of a recent Part 1 application from internet service provider Fibernetics, which has asked the CRTC to stop Eastlink from decommissioning coaxial facilities Fibernetics uses to provide service to customers in Nova Scotia.
