OTTAWA – Rogers Communications vice-president, regulatory, Ken Englehart told www.cartt.ca that the CRTC’s demand that cable open up its third party Internet access (TPIA) tariff agreements to explicitly include provisions for voice service, should not pose much of a problem.
While the Commission did adjust its position somewhat, calling for cable to make provisions for access-dependent” third party voice, “things change” shrugged Englehart.
“We had said that access independent voice (where the consumer and their new VOIP provider installs his or her own telephone service on top of their Rogers High Speed service) is okay. We think that access dependent voice (where the cable company is more involved in provisioning its network) is a serious change from what the Commission originally said,” he explained.
“(But) the important thing there is we don’t have to give them QoS (quality of service). So, we’re still selling them a data service. If they want to use it to provide a voice service they can – we don’t have to give them the management capability – although we might on a commercial basis.”
The TPIA decision from 2000, which created wholesale rates which third party Internet providers have to pay cable companies to use their networks, did not contemplate voice services at the time and the language is unclear, calling for cablecos to allow Internet services on their plant from third parties but not explicitly voice.
“While the CCTA submitted that the TPIA may not prohibit ISPs who use TPIA to provide their Internet access service from also offering VOIP services on an access-independent basis, the Commission considers that the wording of the restriction is not clear, and could be interpreted as restricting this type of service offering,” says the decision.
“Accordingly, the Commission determines that the TPIA restriction should be removed, and directs Rogers, Videotron, Shaw and Cogeco to issue, within 20 days of this decision, revised TPIA tariffs to remove the existing restriction in order to allow TPIA customer to provide VOIP services, in addition to retail IS (Internet service).”
“We had said to them we didn’t think it was necessary to do because we weren’t going to block anyone from getting access,” added CCTA president Michael Hennessy. “So it’s in some respects pro-forma. (Voice) may have certain different traffic characteristics but the fact that we don’t have to provide managed network service is the real issue because that would have distracted us from getting into the market.
“We didn’t think it was necessary but it’s not a major issue for us.”
– Greg O’Brien
