Memo to Bains: Dump facilities-based competition

FORMER CRTC CHAIR Konrad von Finckenstein has some advice for Innovation, Science and Economic Development minister Navdeep Bains: Drop the facilities-based competition principle when the proposed policy directive to the CRTC, announced last week, is finalized.Writing for the CD Howe Institute, von Finckenstein told Bains in a memo dated Wednesday, March 6: “Adherence to the policy of facilities-based competition (where companies each own their hardware and networks) in order not to discourage investment in infrastructure by established telecom companies, as they claim, is no longer sustainable.”He continued: “It is hard to comprehend how much the concept of facilities-based competition has...