Fibre Hearing: To regulate, or not to regulate fibre access. CRTC hears two opposing views on day one

By Perry Hoffman

GATINEAU – While the Competition Bureau argued Monday it’s better not to regulate fibre facilities, others countered that Canada is far too big for facilities based competition and that the Commission should switch its focus to a more service-based approach.The Competition Bureau kicked off day one of the Commission’s hearing into wholesale fibre access for independent third party broadband providers that it shouldn’t jump the gun on regulating access to wholesale facilities including fibre to the premise (FTTP) networks. The agency said the risks of imposing mandated access to FTTP now may be higher than if the Regulator waited until...