By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers wants the CRTC to revisit an October decision approving a tariff that would force the cable giant to go through Telus to get compensated for moving its transmission lines at the behest of government entities, claiming that this would drastically reduce the amount third parties get for relocation.
Being forced to go through Telus to get compensated for moving its transmission lines – as opposed to directly negotiating with the government – will mean being undercompensated because Telus can only negotiate with the government the cost of moving its own transmission lines and not those of third-party attachers, Rogers says in its review-and-vary application, made public Tuesday.
The issue emerged from a joint application by Rogers and Shaw in 2020, which asked the CRTC to step in and force British Columbia’s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) (now called the Ministry of Transportation and Transit) – which had refused to compensate the cable companies – to share, with few exceptions, 50 per cent of the costs to relocate the cable carriers’ facilities at the government’s request and regardless of pole ownership. In the alternative, because the CRTC had previously refused to get involved in negotiations between telecoms and public entities, they asked the regulator to figure a way to rectify what it called an undue preference by virtue of the fact Telus was being compensated and not them.
While the CRTC did not find an undue preference afforded to Telus in the 2022 decision, it felt it had jurisdiction to step in. It established a “two-step approach” whereby it both forced MOTI to come to an agreement on terms no less favourable than that afforded to Telus and also left open the possibility that compensation may be better suited through Telus’s support structure tariff. As such, the CRTC ordered Telus to propose a way to compensate third parties through an amendment to its tariff for consideration.
In the summer of 2024, the CRTC found that Telus did not actually propose a formula for such an exercise, instead proposing that it give third parties an option to negotiate directly with the public body and, as a fall back, an option for dispute resolution at the CRTC.
Rogers, which eventually came to a cost-share agreement with MOTI, agreed with the option to directly negotiate with the public entity. However, because it had previously hit a wall with the government, it wanted the tariff to entrench the need for an agreement between it and the public entity or a commission order before the facilities can be relocated.
Because it didn’t get what it wanted from Telus, the CRTC kicked the issue down the road some more but made an interim ruling forcing Telus, in the meantime, to include a provision to compensate third party attachers and asked the telco to come up with a formula for disbursement.
In October 2025, the CRTC approved Telus’s formula for compensation and rejected Rogers’s proposal that it said would have overcompensated third parties because it included in the equation equipment and facilities not owned by them, i.e. the support structures themselves. The decision effectively made unnecessary the route to negotiate directly with the public entity.
The regulator noted in the decision that, if third parties feel they are not being compensated, the “Commission may review and compare future submissions to determine their reasonableness.” It also said alternative dispute resolution services – such as staff-assisted mediation and an expedited hearing – are available to the parties.
Rogers argues that the CRTC is, effectively, “sub-delegating its authority to determine appropriate terms of access as between a third-party attacher and a public authority to Telus and public authorities,” and that means the CRTC has exceeded its jurisdiction and erred in law, it claims.
The company adds that the CRTC failed to give space to key issues that it claims makes the exercise unreasonable, including why transmission lines should receive less compensation than support structures because they are owned by different carriers; how it’s fair for multiple carriers to share in compensation that was determined based on the cost to move only Telus’s lines; and why it’s okay for a competing carrier — with an incentive to minimize compensation — to administer that money.
“The Commission did not consider at all whether the amount that has been negotiated by Telus and MOTI to share the costs of relocating Telus’ transmission lines would be appropriate compensation for relocating not just Telus’ transmission lines, but also licensee transmission lines, or whether it was appropriate for the Commission to sub-delegate this decision to a competing carrier, namely, Telus, and a public authority,” Rogers said in its application.
“The tariff approach adopted by the Order obviates any requirement for MOTI or another public authority with jurisdiction over the location of Telus support structures to negotiate with a third-party attacher just and reasonable terms for sharing the attachers’ transmission lines that are supported by Telus poles, and any attempt to seek relief from the Commission in this context in accordance with section 43 would appear to be futile,” Rogers continues. (Section 43 of the Telecommunications Act gives the CRTC the power to get involved in disputes between carriers and public entities on access.)
Rogers is asking the commission to revoke its approval of Telus’s tariff and require that MOTI enter into a retroactive relocation and equal cost-sharing agreement, unless they come to an agreement on a different cost-sharing formula.
Should the CRTC ignore this request, Rogers claims the long-term result of this approach will be costly.
“Should the tariff-based approach approved in the Order become a precedent, competing third-party attachers will be forced to bear the entirety of billions of dollars of relocation costs,” Rogers said. “These costs can only be recovered through reduced new deployment of advanced network infrastructure and/or increased service rates.”
