Last Thursday, the CRTC issued a Decision that lightened its regulatory oversight over promotions.
That means that it will be easier for incumbent telephone companies to offer special deals to business and residential subscribers. Keep in mind that there are significant parts of the population where the CRTC no longer approves prices for most telecom services.
For the remaining ‘non-forborne’ areas, this Decision brings forbearance for promotions as long as:
- the combined enrollment and benefit period does not exceed 12 months,
- there is a cooling-off period equal to at least one-half the combined enrollment and benefit period, and
- there are no existing or recently elapsed promotions that involve any of the same tariffed service(s) or underlying service(s) in the same geographic area.
The considerations make interesting reading. The CRTC wanted to provide a lightened regulatory burden – consistent with the policy direction – but wanted to ensure that promotions weren’t being used as a back-door to effectively unregulated rates prior to the forbearance criteria being met.
While new entrants may have preferred that the ILECs’ rates flexibility was limited more, the Decision seems to strike a reasonable benefit to help give consumers more vibrant competitive pricing activity in markets that have not yet offered sufficient choice of service providers to warrant forbearance.
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