By Ahmad Hathout
Telus has filed a notice of discontinuance requesting the Federal Court of Appeal no longer consider its judicial review application challenging an order from the federal cabinet recommending the CRTC contemplate banning the “Big Three” from access to the last-mile fibre regime.
The Vancouver-based telco insisted in March that its case was still relevant – despite the CRTC declining to change its November 2023 interim decision in response to the cabinet order – because the government still had another opportunity to vary or rescind that subsequent decision by May 5.
That date has come and gone and cabinet, which was in a period of transition, has not done anything of the sort.
Telus alleged in its appeal filing that federal cabinet met with telecoms adverse to it to discuss the issue without giving it and the provinces an opportunity to response before it asked the commission to revisit the issue.
Telus is the only one of the Big Three — including Rogers and Bell — to support mandated access to both the middle- and last-mile fibre facilities of Telus and Bell.
In fact, the telco has been using Bell’s fibre facilities to launch services in Ontario and Quebec, including 1.5 Gbps internet download speeds, which the CRTC said was a justification to continue mandating that access.
Earlier this month, Bell launched a public campaign calling on the regulatory and the new federal government to course correct on policies it says are detrimental to investment and jobs, including mandated access to its fibre facilities, which it has always argued reduces the incentive to invest in those networks.
The country’s largest telco said in a recent quarterly earnings conference call that it was again reducing its spending on fibre builds in light of the policy, but that the CRTC can change this when it is expected to release a decision this summer on review-and-vary applications asking it to revisit its final wholesale framework decision and reconsider banning the Big Three from the regime. These applicants used the cabinet order as a change-in-circumstance justification to file.
