So how does the CRTC fit into this week’s announcement from Cabinet?
The CRTC issued a Circular yesterday to give effect to the Order in Council. The circular noted that the tariffs for Bell Canada’s Digital Voice Lite, Bell’s Business IP Voice for Broadband and SaskTel’s Webcall are no longer of any force.
More is required in order to be consistent with the Order in Council. We believe that there should still be a further review and variance of Decision 2006-53 – the VoIP reconsideration.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s posting, the Cabinet Order left Canada with a strange situation that foreign-based VoIP service providers are free from both price regulation and obligations to provide equal access, while Canadian carriers, ILECs and CLECs alike, need to conform to requirements that were designed for the old world of circuit switching.
These equal access obligations were re-affirmed in the CRTC’s Digital Voice approval and its September 1 VoIP reconsideration:
the Commission examined the issue of equal access for VoIP services in the proceeding leading to Decision 2006-11. In Decision 2006-11, the Commission reiterated its concern regarding the possibility of a LEC conferring undue or unreasonable preference with respect to access to its networks. It considered that consumers should continue to have options by being able to select interexchange carriers when subscribing to a VoIP service from a LEC. As a result, the Commission considered that Bell Canada should implement equal access capabilities for BDV Lite service within one year.
…
The Commission considers that eliminating the equal access requirement for LECs in relation to the provision of VoIP services would result in artificial distinctions based on technology. The Commission remains of the view, expressed in Decisions 97-8 and 2005-28, that it is necessary to impose equivalent equal access obligations on all LECs, regardless of the technology used.[2006-53, p.111-114]
According to Decision 2006-53, the Equal Access requirement was predicated, at least in part, on the Commission’s desire to avoid ‘artificial distictions based on technology.’ Since the Cabinet intervention, the CRTC’s principle of technology neutrality no longer holds for access-independent VoIP. There is no longer an artificial distinction being sought. Cabinet has determined “that retail local access-dependent and access‑independent VoIP services are quite different from each other.”
Since access-independent VoIP is now a real distinction and no longer an artificial one, a key premise for imposing equal access obligations no longer holds.
Will the CRTC act of its own motion and demonstrate that it is prepared to work within the full intent of the Minister’s direction, or will it force the entire Canadian carrier industry, ILECs and CLECs alike, to undergo a lengthy industry initiated review and vary process?
How much longer will we delay the consumer benefits of allowing LECs to compete with foreign service providers?
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CRTC, VoIP, ILEC, Industry Canada, Cabinet, Mark Goldberg
So am I right in thinking that in Canada VOIP carriers from Canada have tighter regulation than those from outside of the country? So overseas business have an advantage over Canadian businesses?
Hello, I just wish to ask this. I have recently open a Reseller Account with Voip.MS. Now my questions is, do I need to register with CRTC to do reselling the VoIP? Please reply. Thank you.