By Ahmad Hathout
TekSavvy is once again asking the CRTC to stop Cogeco from decommissioning copper facilities it relies on to provide internet service to customers in Ontario.
In a Part 1 application made public Thursday, the largest independent internet wholesaler said it received notices from Cogeco about its move away from hybrid fibre-coaxial facilities (HFC) to pure fibre in parts of Windsor, Burlington, Kingston and its hometown of Chatham.
Until it can make a final decision on its application, TekSavvy is asking the CRTC to order an immediate suspension of any decommissioning before April 1, which is when it said it was told the removal of some of those older facilities would take effect. Alternatively, it is asking for mandated access to the fibre facilities on an aggregated basis at HFC speeds and rates at those affected locations until that final determination.
“Between the four Impacted Sites, thousands of addresses are expected to be impacted by these planned changes to Cogeco’s network,” TekSavvy says in its application. “The facilities available at each address differ: in some cases, the network change means that customers would be left with no other service provider for HSA services other than Cogeco.
“In others, the only facilities available to wholesale-based competitors are through either Bell’s low-speed legacy or FTTN services that are not viable substitutes for the affected customers’ plans, or high-cost FTTP services that will result in monthly cost increases ranging from at least $15-$56 per month, as well as new installation costs. TekSavvy will need to pass on its cost increases to customers.”
The wholesaler also claims it wasn’t given a full accounting of the addresses that will be impacted by the decommissioning, meaning it is “possible that in the time since receiving the notice [in August 2025], TekSavvy may have signed up additional customers in the areas affected by the decommissioning.”
Cogeco declined to comment on the basis that the matter is before the CRTC.
The CRTC had already determined in response to previous TekSavvy applications that decommissioning of older technologies would be bad news for competitors. That determination came two days after the release of its final wholesale internet framework in August 2024, in which it said it would hold a proceeding to determine the broader impact of copper decommissioning on wholesale competitors.
TekSavvy said neither the copper decommissioning proceeding nor the final wholesale fibre rates have come to pass, leaving it with a regional cable company exempt from providing access to its bundled transport and last-mile fibre network and unable to access Bell’s fibre facilities that are exempt under the five-year access moratorium for new builds. It reiterated that it’s financially unfeasible to work under the disaggregated regime, which requires it to get its own fibre transport facilities to access the last mile.
“There are no suitable alternative wholesale access facilities that would allow TekSavvy to offer its customers comparable speeds and prices for their Internet service,” it said in the application, adding that there are insufficient alternatives, such as much older technologies that max out at 25 Mbps – half the federal target – and what it calls inflated wholesale rates in areas where it can access Bell’s last-mile fibre.
Without an intervention, TekSavvy, which says it lost customers to copper decommissioning in past years, claims it would have to increase prices for customers or just lose them to Bell or Cogeco. As such, such decommissioning would give Cogeco an undue preference, TekSavvy claims.
“TekSavvy asks that the Commission preserve the status quo, by requiring Cogeco to either halt its removal of coaxial access facilities at the Impacted Sites or to provide mandated wholesale access to the replacement fibre facilities at the Impacted Sites to wholesale customers at the current rates of coaxial facilities,” it said in the application.
TekSavvy is also asking the CRTC to consider imposing administrative monetary penalties against Cogeco for alleged repeated violations of its “obligation to maintain existing wholesale services when building fibre networks and removing legacy or copper facilities.”
