A flood of documents arrived in my email late yesterday, with parties filing their comments in response to the seventh amendment to Telecom Notice of Consultation 2009-261.
The filings should be available on the CRTC website in the next couple days.
In the meantime, here are some highlights.
From TELUS [para. 12]:
While new investment is completely in line with macro-economic policy, unbundling is not. In fact unbundling actually increases the risk of investing in facilities that are required to compete with the market leader in broadband and broadcast distribution. Unbundling is an absurd proposition at best if the goal is to promote competition.
From Bell [para. 19]:
In the end, the trade-off faced by the Commission can be summarized as follows: is it better to mandate access to NGNs and depress investment, in the hope of spurring some hybrid or resale competition in those limited well-served areas where each of cable, ILEC and wireless providers will have built high-speed broadband networks, at the expense of competition in “lost” areas, or is it better to not impose regulatory measures and let ILECs invest as much as market forces allow, in order to provide as many Canadians and communities as possible with the benefits of competition from at least three competing facilities-based networks?
From Rogers and the major cable carriers [para. ES14]
The international evidence points to some risk that wholesale access requirements would have a negative impact on incentives for investment by facilities-based broadband service providers. A review of the literature provides no strong evidence that the benefits would be sufficient to outweigh this risk.
From MTS Allstream [para. E3]:
Based on the U.S. experience, withdrawal of regulated wholesale services is more likely to discourage investment than to stimulate it. In contrast to the existing situation in the U.S., in Europe it is recognized that replication of existing infrastructures is neither practical nor desirable, even in densely populated areas, and that unbundling networks and providing wholesale access is a proven enabler of both competition and investment.
Surprisingly, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers had no comments. Their two page submission consisted of a restatement of the subjects upon which CRTC was seeking comments and a statement that the Competitors “look forward to reviewing the submissions of interested parties.” Considering the association’s declaration of importance of this issue, it is somewhat surprising that there was no substance to its filing, no evidence filed to address the question that seemed to be crying out for input from CAIP et al.
At paragraph 11.B.b, the notice asked for evidence to support or counter:
whether, in the absence of the speed-matching requirement and the mandated provision of the high-speed access services under consideration, there would be competition sufficient to protect the interests of users;
This point seems crucial for the various appeals that were mounted by CAIP over the past year. It seems bizarre that the Competitors wouldn’t put forward evidence to address this point. They need to do more than just look forward to reviewing other submissions. CAIP and the Competitors should have put forward a strong case and prepare to defend it.
Update [February 9, 7:15 am]
Teksavvy filed a complete set of comments, with supplementary expert evidence, including a literature review that could result in the CRTC being the first quasi-judicial body to pronounce upon the Harvard Berkman study that was released last October [see our many posts such as here, here and here, describing critiques of that piece]. Most importantly, there is a paragraph in Teksavvy’s submission that begs the question of why its evidence wasn’t filed by the CAIP coalition.
TSI notes that the competitive sector is not in good health. Evidence of this is demonstrable through the reduction that has occurred in recent years in the number of competitors participating in the regulatory process and the reduced vigour of the participation of those who are left. The result has been that TSI has had to expend considerable resources in order to ensure that competition does not die, and with it, TSI itself. This is a big burden for one competitor to bear, and it is not a burden that can be sustained indefinitely.