By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers president and CEO Tony Staffieri said Wednesday that the company’s spending on networks is now at risk if the federal government doesn’t rescind a CRTC decision mandating that the three largest telecommunications companies be allowed to ride on the networks of others.
Last month, the CRTC turned away applications, including from Rogers, that asked the regulator to reconsider allowing Rogers, Bell and Telus – the “Big 3” – to use the wholesale internet regime because of the claimed negative impact on investments and on smaller service providers who, they say, will be crushed by the deeper pockets of their biggest competitors. In addition to a petition to cabinet, Cogeco and Eastlink, two of the most outspoken regional competitors on the matter, have filed a joint application asking the Federal Court of Appeal to send the decision back.
“The CRTC policy effectively provides subsidized access to well-capitalized corporations to use our balance sheet and capital,” Staffieri said at the tail end of his opening remarks during the company’s second-quarter earnings conference call.
“Canada needs to incent and reward companies that make big, bold bets. That’s how Rogers was built, and now the federal government has a decision to make. Let me be clear, if the current policy remains in place, it will force Rogers to cut capital programs and with it, network construction jobs,” he said, adding “billions of dollars in network investment in our sector are at risk.”
The CRTC has already twice rejected the suggestion from service providers big and small to bar the largest players from using the framework they say was originally contemplated to facilitate smaller player entry. It first turned away a cabinet recommendation, triggered by a Bell petition, by pointing to the fact that Telus – the only one of the Big 3 supporting the policy – is using it to drive more consumer choice in Ontario and Quebec. It then turned away review and vary applications, triggered by the cabinet recommendation, to revise the final wholesale internet framework to carve out that exception.
Before that second ruling, Cogeco, Eastlink, the Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) and SaskTel filed a joint “precautionary” filing to cabinet asking for a review in the event the CRTC stands firm. This petition is now being triggered.
In its final wholesale internet decision, released in the summer of 2024, the CRTC expanded to the rest of the country an interim mandate that allowed all service providers to use the bundled last-mile fibre networks of Bell and Telus in Ontario and Quebec. Crucially, it threw the telcos a bone by banning access to their brand-new fibre builds for five years to allow them to at least make back their money.
This was a courtesy not extended to the cable companies, who are not subject to the bundled last-mile fibre mandate.
In its review and vary application, Rogers urged the CRTC to both ban access to the wholesale regime by the Big 3 and to extend an access moratorium on new cable networks on which it says it spends billions of dollars to deliver multi-gigabit internet speeds.
On the other end, Telus has been ramping up its public campaign to push back against critics of the CRTC policy. Last week, a day before Cogeco and Eastlink filed their challenge to the appeal court, the Vancouver-based telco’s CEO pushed the narrative that big telecom access to these networks bolsters competition and said over 400,000 Canadians, who signed a petition it started, agree.
Rogers now joins Bell in stating that network investments are at risk if the policy is allowed to stand. Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said earlier this year that the company was reducing investments in its fibre networks and lowering the number of households the telco plans to connect with direct fibre this year.
Rogers, which reported slightly higher cable revenue of $2 billion in the second quarter, reported that it passed roughly 10.3 million homes with its networks, up slightly from the same period last year. Net new internet customers were up by 3,000 to 26,000 subscribers in the three months that ended on June 30. The total internet customers base sat at 4.45 million, up from the roughly 4.3 million from the same period last year.
On the postpaid wireless side, the carrier added 35,000 net new customers, higher than the 11,000 it added in the same quarter last year, for a total base of 10.9 million. Churn, or the rate of customer exit, was down slightly to 1 per cent and the monthly average revenue per user was also down by $1.49 to $55.45 this quarter, owing in part to competition in this segment.
On prepaid, the company added 26,000 new prepaid customers, up from the 23,000 it added in the comparable period, for a total base that increased by 31,000 to 1.16 million. Churn in that segment — which Rogers has said it wants to treat as a funnel to loyal postpaid customers — was down 11 basis points to 3.23 per cent.
Still, total wireless revenue was down $4,000 to $2.54 million in the quarter.
Meanwhile, the cable giant is making moves into new territory on wireless. Earlier this month, it announced a text messaging beta trial for its satellite-to-mobile product, Rogers Satellite.
Staffieri said the company has seen a “strong” uptake of the product in the first week, with the hope that it will gain widespread attraction. He also said the company aims to have voice and data capabilities on the product “later in 2026” or sooner.
“That’s sort of our estimate as we work with our satellite partners in terms of the technology and when voice and data could come on stream,” Staffieri said.
The company reported $5.2 billion in total revenue for the three months that ended June 30, up from the $4.98 it reported in the same period last year. Net income, however, was down to $148 million compared to the $280 million it saw in the same period in 2024.
The company reported fewer net losses on the video side, losing 25,000 customers compared to the 32,000 versus the same period last year. The total base there was down slightly to 2.56 million.
The landline segment saw a loss of 29,000 customers, more than the 26,000 it lost over the same period. The total base in that segment was also down to 1.45 million.
The cable company added 3,000 net new home monitoring customers, down from the 5,000 it added over the same period, for a total base of 141,000 – up from the 138,000 it reported in the second quarter last year.
Media revenues were up to $808 million, compared to the $596 million it logged in the same period last year. The company attributed the gains to higher sports-related revenue due to the success of the NHL playoffs and the launch of the Warner Bros. Discovery suite of television channels.
