UBB Hearing: Wholesale pricing hearing descends into urban planning debate

GATINEAU - Tuning into the CRTC’s usage-based billing hearing on Monday morning, you may have thought that the Commission was dealing with urban planning issues around road congestion rather a billing model for wholesale Internet services. Several parties tried, at times convincingly, to rely on streets, side streets, on-ramps and cars on a road to parallel wholesale traffic congestion, where network investments would be required and just how those costs should be recovered. After a somewhat technical exchange among the Commission, independent ISP group CNOC, and Bell Canada on network topology and what the independent ISPs actually pay for the use of,...