I just received a copy of the 5 inch stack of paper that makes up Bell’s Federal Court Application to appeal the CRTC’s Deferral Account Decision. We wrote about this earlier in the week and I haven’t seen it picked up by the rest of the telecom news business.
There is $650 million at stake here, folks. The appeal seems to be arguing two points: that the spending on rural broadband is actually just an option for ILECs (a $480M option); and, that the CRTC over-stepped its jurisdiction in ordering the ILECs to rebate any of the money that they don’t spend on the broadband program.
Is this a case that the CRTC used poorly chosen language that allows ILECs to make the rural upgrade plan optional? The March 10 follow-up letter to ILECs has some strange language in it as well:
The proposed broadband services should be comparable to those provided in urban areas, i.e., comparable monthly rates, terms and conditions, upload and download speeds, and reliability.
The CRTC didn’t say ‘equivalent’. They said ‘comparable’. Does that mean that, as long as the ILEC provides a table indicating how the proposed services compares, it is permissible to have a slower, higher-priced offering?
In the meantime, the clock is ticking – proposals are supposed to be submitted by June 30. With a half billion dollars in Bell territory alone at stake, this appeal strikes me as something that merits wider coverage and analysis.