TORONTO – Fair and not-too-expensive access to the incumbent telco infrastructure must be maintained, especially in the enterprise market, for real competition to be seen, MTS Allstream CEO Pierre Blouin said in a keynote address to the Canadian Telecom Summit on Tuesday.
"For competition and innovation to thrive in the national business market, Canada needs a regulatory environment that creates a level playing field."
He spoke prior to Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, who told conference attendees that the government was telling the CRTC to let the market decide – and that includes wholesale arrangements.
Last year, MTS Allstream paid approximately $250 million to the former monopolies (of which the company’s MTS division is one) for access to the local network connections that link MTS Allstream’s advanced national network to its customers.
"These local access roads – the public network infrastructure – were built by the former monopolies over the course of decades with essentially no risk in a heavily regulated, guaranteed, rate-of-return environment," said Blouin. "Nonetheless, where regulation is absent, they charge competitors access rates that range from 50 per cent to as high as 300 per cent over and above their true costs plus a reasonable rate of return.
"The potential for competition to drive the rapid innovation offered by IP and other emerging technologies will only be realized if the requirements necessary for sustainable competition are present," he added. "The first is cost-based access for competitors to the public network infrastructure. And the second is meaningful consequences for incumbents that fail to meet mandated quality of service levels for competitors accessing the public network infrastructure. If these requirements are satisfied, competition and innovation in the business market will thrive. If not, competition and innovation will be in jeopardy.
"If innovation, productivity and competition are Canada’s policy goals, then we cannot have a regulatory framework that allows the largest players to be the gatekeepers to competition in the business market. Without fair and sustainable competition, the pace of innovation in Canadian telecommunications will slow."
