Yesterday’s CRTC decision on unbundled local loops should signal many competitors that it is time to grow up.
Wholesale aggregated services have provided a safe arbitrage opportunity for too many, lulling operators into a comfort zone that had no incentive for investment and service differentiation. Now, coupled with usage based billing from August’s wholesale access services decision, the CRTC has updated the regulatory framework for competition in telecom services.
For nearly 20 years, the CRTC has enabled competitors to ramp up their operations by building an customer base using wholesale aggregation, followed by network optimization using local loop resale and ulimately encouraging investment in alternate facilities. The latter two steps require more investment, but these provide the opportunity for real competitive differentiation in price and services.
As such, consumers derive more substantial benefits as competitors mature in their network development.
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Mark, from what I understand about investment in alternate facilities by idependent ISPs, incumbents refusal to provide access to subscribers that are served from remotes hurts that business case. The only way you can get to a remote served customer is via the ILEC’s DSL service. So there is unfair practises on the “alternate facilities” side by the incumbents as well.
I guess that is why the independent ISP currently feels they are between a rock and a hard place.