OTTAWA – Add Telus to the list of telco’s appealing to the Federal government over CRTC decisions.
The B.C.-based telco filed a petition to the Governor in Council late last week over Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-117 and calling for the rescission of Telecom Order CRTC 2009-111, expressing many of the same concerns as BCE.
Citing its capital program for 2009 which planned to invest $2.05 billion dollars in its networks, Telus’ petition said that rather than encourage investment risks in the current economy, “the CRTC has declared that we will be required to share this new investment with arbitragers at regulated rates.”
Calling the decision “extremely investor-hostile” and “unfair and unprecedented in North America”, Telus also said that the CRTC’s “approach is a totally inconsistent with the goal of creating new investment without government assistance.”
It contrasted the policy with that in the US, where “companies that take the risk and invest in next generation networks get the benefit of their own investments” (Verizon and AT&T are now investing billions of private capital in next generation networks). “Companies that do not invest do not get to ride on the investments made by others”, the petition continued.
The CRTC’s “misguided policy” appears to be based on “skewed logic”, Telus continued, and called the policy “technology biased”, rather than technology neutral. At issue is the distinction between services that make some use of copper facilities and those that run entirely over fibre optic facilities, which, according to current policy, means the former are and will be subject to mandated access, the latter may, one day, be free from regulation, the petition detailed.
“Grouping new services together with older services like basic ADSL or dial-up access simply because there may be some use of copper is inconceivable. This is like saying a stagecoach and a jetliner are more or less the same service in the same market because they both have wheels and take people from one place to another,” Telus said.
It asked the Governor in Council to use its authority to “rescind” Telecom Order CRTC 2009-111 and “vary” Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-117 “to stipulate that no increased speed or functionality of internet service added to the Telus network after the date of Telecom Decision 2008-17 ‘Revised Regulatory Framework for Wholesale Services and Definition of Essential Service’ is required by regulation to be made available on a wholesale basis to Telus’ competitors.”
