The CRTC issued a Decision on Friday in a relatively small proceeding that is noteworthy only because the process was 4 and a half years old. That’s right.
Rogers filed its original complaint in November 2001. Arguments went back and forth through January 2002. It took the Commission 9 months before it got around to realizing that it needed more information from the ILECs, so it addressed interrogatories to them in October 2002 and responses were received within a month.
Then the file disappeared.
Rogers had complained that the rates it paid for wireless interconnection in the territories of small ILECs was too high. Rogers had been prepared for delays, so it asked for the CRTC to make any rate reductions retroactive to January 2002. The CRTC denied this portion of the Rogers request, stating:
The Commission considers that retroactively modifying rates that have previously been granted final approval would create uncertainty as to the finality of Commission decisions and notes that it typically does not modify such rates with retroactive effect. The Commission also expects that if the recommended rates were applied retroactively, as proposed by RWI, any revenue shortfall caused by retroactive rate adjustments would have to be compensated for by local subscribers through a local rate increase.
In effect, the CRTC is saying that local rates have been subsidized by Rogers overpayments for the past 3 years. Perhaps Rogers should have pressed the CRTC from the outset to make the rates interim, from the time of the original complaint.
Still, it is unclear to me why Rogers’ shareholders and subscribers have had to pay excess amounts to the small ILECs because this file went into hiding for more than 3 years.