Fibre Decision: Fibre access now mandated; disaggregated model to be implemented

By Perry Hoffman

OTTAWA and GATINEAU - The CRTC appears have to struck a balance between competitors’ requests to access incumbent and cableco facilities, and the large providers’ need to invest with return on investment certainty.The two big changes to come from Wednesday’s decision on wholesale wireline services is that access to the ILECs’ last mile fibre facilities by competitors is now mandated, and that there will be a transition to a disaggregated wholesale High Speed Access (HSA) model.Telecom Regulatory Policy 2015-326 also greatly simplifies the wholesale services market. There is now a three point test (input, competition and duplicability) to determine whether a service...