In what appears to be a contradiction to its previous policy, the CRTC now says that Voice over IP is a new broadband internet service, at least for the purpose of calculating the broadband subsidy. This seems to contradict its VoIP decision that said VoIP is just a new technology delivering plain old telephone service.
In a letter to ILECs [not available for on-line viewing] as part of the follow-up to the Deferral Account decision, the CRTC told ILECs that their calculation for broadband revenues should include: retail broadband Internet service revenues, wholesale broadband Internet service [Gateway Access Service/High Speed Access] revenues, broadband backbone service revenues (e.g. dark fibre), and other retail broadband service revenues, such as Wide Area Network, Voice over Internet Protocol, and Internet Protocol Television (specify).
If VoIP is really just a new way of delivering plain old voice service for regulatory purposes, why wouldn’t the revenue from VoIP be excluded from broadband revenues?