Bell calls application an ‘attempt to abuse the CRTC process’
By Ahmad Hathout
Quebecor is alleging that Bell is delaying access to its national wireless network despite the CRTC already determining the rate for that access.
In a Part 1 application posted Wednesday, Quebecor said it had prepared to launch services using Bell’s network on October 11 in areas where it doesn’t have a wireless network. But since the CRTC selected Bell’s rate for that access after arbitration on October 10, Quebecor alleges Bell has delayed its cooperation, which it says amounts to an anticompetitive practice.
Part of that delay, Quebecor alleges, is a requirement by Bell for it to sign a service agreement which it says deviates from the tariff that the CRTC established. The reasoning goes that because Bell agreed to arbitration, it must comply with the CRTC-sanctioned tariff.
“By deliberately violating its regulatory obligations, Bell places Quebecor Media and its subsidiaries at an undue advantage,” Quebecor said in its French-language application. “This is obvious, because Videotron and Freedom have been denied access the service and the [rate] for almost two months,” which it said harms competition and consumers.
It also claims that Bell knows that Quebecor is “champing at the bit” to get into markets that Bell covets, hence the alleged delay.
Quebecor is asking the CRTC to immediately order Bell to comply with the CRTC-sanctioned tariff and make both the rate and the start date for the purposes of the seven-year sunsetting for its MVNO tariff to October 11, 2023.
Further in its application, Quebecor is trying to paint a pattern of anticompetitive practices on the part of Bell, pointing to its Federal Court challenge of an order by the CRTC to provide competitors with access to its last mile fibre network.
As such, Quebecor claims it is appropriate for the CRTC to impose an administrative monetary penalty on Bell.
“One conclusion is obvious: Bell persists…by once again resorting to delaying tactics with an unquestionably anti-competitive aim, i.e. delay and harm the launch of our commercial wireless offerings in new territories,” Quebecor alleged in the application.
“Such shenanigans are entirely contrary to what the Commission seeks to accomplish by facilitating access for competing companies to a larger wireless market,” it added.
Quebecor is asking for its application to be expedited because it claims any delay is a win for Bell.
But Bell challenges the entire application.
“Quebecor’s application has nothing to do with its MVNO service,” Bell alleged in a statement. “This is simply an attempt to abuse the CRTC process to extract a retroactive windfall payment from Bell, contrary to the terms of the approved tariff and October’s CRTC decision. The tariff and the decision make clear that the MVNO arrangements will start after the parties have entered into a written agreement. Within days of the decision, Bell provided Quebecor a standard agreement. They have refused to engage. In the meantime, they have continued to access our network through existing roaming arrangements.”
Bell pointed to the stipulation in the CRTC decision and the tariff that an agreement must be signed before MVNO services can be launched and that Quebecor had already announced on October 12 the launch of wireless services in areas across Canada (normally, Quebecor would not say publicly which networks it rides on).
