Last week, Bell has filed an appeal of the CRTC’s Deferral Account Decision with the Federal Court, arguing that the CRTC overstepped its mandate in ordering rate reductions in the form of rebates to subscribers.
Here is the idea.
The CRTC sent a follow-up letter on March 10 to the ILECs with details on what the proposals for the broadband expenditures should look like. In that letter, the CRTC said that the rural plans should have similar pricing and service characteristics as that available in urban areas. Also, the CRTC’s letter asks the telcos to show studies based on providing competitors with access to Bell’s backbone facilities.
So, if you are a telco, you are being asked to spend a lot of time and energy on a broadband roll-out plan that may provide no reasonable rate of return (given the pricing intervention by the regulator) and enable your competitors to ride on the backbone for free (or awfully close to free).
Considering the fact the high speed internet is not currently price or service quality regulated, the CRTC’s letter seems to indicate that it is getting into a mode to regulate it in certain areas. The Court filing may be Bell’s way of pushing back.
While this is some high stakes poker (it looks like $1M legal bill already!), there is more than half a billion dollars at stake here.
Stay tuned to this station for further details and see our earlier discussion of the Decision. Film at 11.