GATINEAU — The CRTC today granted final approval for Northwestel to increase the data usage allowances for several of its terrestrial Internet service packages, which had been approved on an interim basis in June.
In an application at the beginning of June, Northwestel had proposed increasing the data caps on certain residential and business cable, DSL and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) Internet packages by 7% to 100%, without any increases in the retail rates. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, Northwestel said it had seen a substantial increase in DSL and residential cable usage in particular.
In its submission, the far north telecom provider noted that its proposal to increase data usage caps would increase costs and reduce revenues for certain DSL services which are already offered at rates significantly below costs and which would not be able to pass a price floor test (which establishes a minimum price threshold to ensure rates are just and reasonable).
In addition, during the pandemic, Northwestel’s decision to provide unlimited data on its residential cable and FTTP Internet packages also increased costs and reduced revenues for services already offered at rates below its costs, but the company said the changes were reasonable and necessary at that time.
However, going forward, Northwestel says it can’t offer unlimited data packages on an ongoing basis, unless it manages to secure funding through the Commission’s Broadband Fund to make improvements to its network to accommodate the anticipated increase in customer traffic.
In its Telecom Order CRTC 2020-370 today, the Commission acknowledged Northwestel’s revenues and network infrastructure could potentially be negatively impacted if the company continued to offer unlimited data plans, as it did during its Covid-19 promotional period.
Therefore, the Commission today approved Northwestel’s proposed increases of between 7% to 100% on several of the company’s residential and business cable, DSL and FTTP Internet packages.
Furthermore, as we reported last week, the Commission has started a proceeding to review its regulatory framework for Northwestel, which will also assess the general state of telecom services in Canada’s North, including issues of affordability and quality of service.
“Changes resulting from that proceeding could potentially further impact the offering of Northwestel’s retail terrestrial Internet services once a decision has been made,” writes the Commission in its order today.
