>In July, the CRTC issued a decision to try to speed up the roll-out of broadband in rural regions, rather than wait for the conclusion of the entire proceeding.
In its Deferral Account decision from February 2006, the CRTC determined that incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) should use the majority of the funds in their deferral accounts to expand broadband services to rural and remote communities.
Last September, the ILECs submitted a list of 650 candidate communities and the CRTC matched this list to submissions from competitive broadband service providers to develop a list of presumedly uncontested, potentially unserved areas.
In a July 6 decision, still only part way through the deferral account proceeding, the CRTC figured that it might as well get a jump on things by letting the ILECs get going on the uncontested areas.
Barrett Xplore has called on the CRTC to review and vary this decision as having been based on errors in law and facts.
The CRTC didn’t wait for the proceeding to be complete before issuing its listing. The lists of three-year plans for serving communities are now up to a year old and merit review. The CRTC’s interim decision was never described in the original public notice and parties had not yet had an opportunity to comment on the evidence.
There are other questions that have been raised about whether subsidies should apply to business services in rural communities. Wouldn’t that be an interesting twist? Residential subscribers are being asked to subsidize business services. The CRTC’s interim July decision did not address this point, yet authorized the ILECs to get started.
In their comments filed with the Commission, Bell and TELUS had differing viewpoints. TELUS agreed that the CRTC’s process did not allow Barrett Xplore to update their list of communities, and supported Barrett’s request to remove two areas from the approval list. Of course, are there other areas that would have been updated by other alternate broadband suppliers. The clear message was that the process was flawed despite the CRTC’s altruistic intent.
In the end, the concern is the potential distortion to market forces, contrary to the policy direction that has been paramount for the Commission.
Will the deferral account spending plans create a windfall for ILECs to have a monopoly on rural broadband services, paid for by excess rates charged to urban residential subscribers? Or will the funds enable all competing service providers to have an equal shot at providing service – even in rural markets?