OTTAWA – If you ask Netflix, the CRTC’s planned review into wholesale broadband usage based billing, as it stands, is “unduly narrow” and “disconnected from the broader regulatory framework and priorities for high-speed access services.”
The web-based video streaming provider offered those comments and more this week in response to the Commission’s call for comments on modifying the scope and terms of its review into usage based billing (UBB).
Netflix also backed recommendations made by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC), which include an examination of whether UBB is, in fact, the ideal solution for the incumbents’ traffic management practices, and that the proceeding be opened to the public through on-line consultations and public hearings.
“The Commission should consider what role competitors will play in the market, what types of access to incumbents’ facilities are necessary for them to play that role, and how that access should be priced”, Netflix wrote in its comments, dated February 22. "Only by expanding the scope of the proceedings… will the Commission be able to determine the appropriate mix of measures necessary to foster reliance on market forces and a robustly competitive marketplace for retail Internet services.”
In related news, a Bloomberg report says that California-based Netflix has hired two former Canadian telecom regulators – Leonard St-Aubin and Jan Skora – as its lobbyists here in Canada. As well, Subrata Bhattacharjee, a Toronto-based competition lawyer with Heenan Blaikie LLP, and Lynne Hamilton of GCI Group Inc. have been hired to lobby for the company, a Netflix spokesperson confirmed.
– Lesley Hunter
