It seems to me that incumbent regulatory activity may be the best measure of how well a competitor is doing. We couldn’t help but notice that Bell is turning up the heat on Videotron, perhaps in response to the volume of CRTC complaints filed by Videotron over the past few months.
The latest Bell complaint is hard to swallow. Bell is upset that Videotron is telling their new voice customers that they have to cancel their Sympatico high speed in order to get Videotron service. There is a pretty simple technical issue: when Videotron connects its service, it unplugs the inside wire from the Bell local loop and connects the inside wiring up to the Videotron voice connection.
From Videotron’s perspective, when you unplug the Bell local loop, you lose all of the services carried over that loop.
Bell thinks this is unfair. Bell thinks that Videotron is providing itself with preferential treatment by forcing customers to cancel their Sympatico service when they sign up for Videotron voice. Bell claims that they are being unjustly treated and it cites an earlier CRTC Decision that ordered Bell to continue to provide high speed internet service to customers that chose an alternate local phone company. In Bell’s view the same rules should apply to Videotron: Fair is fair.
The remedy that Bell suggests is that Videotron should have to install alternate inside wire. I’m serious. Bell actually thinks that Videotron should have to pull new wiring inside all of their customers homes so that customers have the choice of keeping their Sympatico service. Right. Believe me; I’m not going to let ‘the cable guy’ try to get new wiring to my kitchen phone outlet or through any of the rest of the house.
Bell didn’t think that an alternative would be for Sympatico to install a single inside wire connection to a DSL modem in the basement and deliver high speed to computers over WiFi. After all, Bell’s local loop is still sitting at the demarcation point [in the basement or wherever]. And presumably, Videotron’s condition doesn’t apply to high speed service that customers are buying from wireless service providers.
Bell may be regreting the decision to transfer ownership of the inside wiring to end users. The inside wire doesn’t belong to Bell any more. If another service provider needs the wire, and the customer agrees to the conditions imposed by the alternate service provider [such as a service bundle], then it is Bell that needs to come up with a new way to reach their customers.
Any news from Inukshuk?