Disconnections are expected June 4, TekSavvy said
By Ahmad Hathout
TekSavvy is again asking the CRTC to intervene in a case where its internet customers are at risk of losing service because the cable network from which it leases capacity is being migrated to pure fibre.
In a Part 1 application dated Wednesday that has yet to be posted at the time of this story’s publishing, Teksavvy said 29 customers at two buildings – 191 and 201 Sherbourne Street – in Toronto are at risk of disconnection because Rogers told the Chatham-based company that it is migrating those hybrid fibre-coax facilities to last-fibre.
The problem for TekSavvy is that cable companies like Rogers – unlike, in the interim, telephone companies Bell and Telus – do not need to lease their last-mile fibre infrastructure to competitors as it does for older technology unless it is done under the disaggregated regime.
And therein lies another problem, TekSavvy claims: “To the best of TekSavvy’s knowledge, disaggregated interconnection has not been enabled anywhere on Rogers’s network,” it said in the application. The disaggregated regime mandates competitor access to the last-mile fibre of the larger players, but at the cost of having to get their own traffic transport network.
Thus, that leaves TekSavvy with only the existing hybrid infrastructure that cable companies have been migrating away from in favour of pure fibre connections.
TekSavvy said Rogers allegedly sent a notice in early December to the wrong email address about the disconnections at the buildings, which would begin as soon as May 6. TekSavvy said it did not receive the notice because it went to said wrong address. Rogers then allegedly sent a reminder email on May 15, which TekSavvy said it did receive, with an updated list of affected accounts and revised the termination date to June 4.
TekSavvy said from that reminder email to the date of the Part 1 application, it has been working with Rogers but also through the CRTC’s dispute resolution process to address the issue.
Because the timeline is tight before Rogers’s impending cutoff deadline of June 4, TekSavvy said it had to engage the CRTC process because it is aware that the commission may not be able to make a ruling in time to save those connections.
That process, TekSavvy said, has not yielding a resolution to this point.
“We’ve been working with the property management at this apartment complex to install fibre-to-the-home access for residents,” Rogers said in a statement provided to Cartt. “Last year, we provided all relevant service providers, including Teksavvy, with the required notice set out by the CRTC.”
Rogers also said that it used an email address it was previously provided by TekSavvy to send the original notice in December.
TekSavvy is banking on precedent here, as the CRTC had just ruled last month that Cogeco must ensure that TekSavvy customers remain connected at two locations as the larger cable company seeks to migrate those older hybrid facilities to direct fibre lines.
TekSavvy said it communicated that determination with Rogers on May 17, but allegedly received a response saying that Rogers “is unable to delay the decommissioning, and Rogers is unable to support wholesale access to end-users” at the affected buildings.
“If Rogers were permitted to proceed with these network changes and competitors thereby lost the ability to connect and serve end users on the affected footprints, incumbent carriers would effectively have tacit permission to make network changes that deny competitors’ the ability to serve customers, reducing consumer choice and competition across their networks,” TekSavvy said in its application, adding that culminates in Rogers giving itself an undue preference as it locks TekSavvy out of not just its existing 29 customers, but the total pool of 596 total units at the affected buildings.
TekSavvy is also asking for the CRTC to consider levying administrative monetary penalties against Rogers because this is allegedly the second time the cable giant has violated a 2016 determination by the regulator that providers must maintain competitor access to facilities when performing network changes, including fibre upgrades, under the wholesale internet regime.
The 2016 decision came after TekSavvy filed a Part 1 in 2015 about a similar scenario where Rogers was migrating its facilities to fibre in a Toronto building, which would affect TekSavvy customers. The CRTC decided such a move would violate section 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act.
