The CRTC on Thursday denied a request by Quebecor’s Videotron to destandardize four aggregated third-party internet access speed tiers: 5 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload; 10 Mbps/1.5 Mbps; 15 Mbps/10 Mbps; and 20 Mbps/10 Mbps.
The CRTC noted that while Videotron said it is under no obligation to maintain the speeds given it doesn’t provide them to its own retail customers per the speed-matching rule, the Montreal-based telecom must still show that there is sufficient grounds to justify the request; that the request doesn’t disproportionately affect competitors; and that it is not uncompetitive in nature.
The regulator ruled that Videotron failed on all three of those points, leveraging opposing interventions from Bravo Telecom and ColbaNet to prop up the reasoning.
“As noted by Bravo Telecom and ColbaNet, if the proposed destandardization were to be approved, the lowest-speed tiers of Videotron’s aggregated TPIA service would no longer be available to competitors and the lowest-speed tier rate available to smaller ISPs would increase in price by 85%,” the CRTC said. “The Commission considers that this cost increase could have a significant impact on Videotron’s wholesale customers, including ColbaNet.”
The CRTC also said the request would also affect retail customers who rely on those lower-speed, lower-cost tiers, which would therefore run counter to the policy objectives of reliability, affordability and competitiveness.
The CRTC had made a similar decision three years ago, which it cited in this matter. In 2023, Cogeco was denied a request to destandardize the 6 Mbps and 40 Mbps aggregated and disaggregated speed tiers because it would disproportionately harm its competitors.
Earlier this year, the CRTC denied a request by Eastlink to destandardize the 100 Mbps and 300 Mbps download speed tiers because it would “disproportionately affect competitors and considerably increase their access costs” and eliminate the more affordable speed tiers for consumers.
At the same time, in Thursday’s decision, the regulator approved Videotron’s request to withdraw two disaggregated TPIA speeds – 0-5 Mbps download/0-1 Mbps upload and 6-10 Mbps download/0-1.5 Mbps upload – because there are no customers on those tiers.
Videotron did not respond to a request for comment.
