Is the CRTC intentionally sabotaging its own prohibition on fees?

Before the Canada Day holiday, the Commission launched a consultation, “Show cause and call for comments – Compliance with the prohibition of fees that are a barrier to switching cellphone and Internet plans”.

I’ve already provided my opinion on the CRTC’s prohibition. No carrier charges activation fees that are a barrier to switching. What rational business would? Businesses are always trying to win over customers.

Now, if a service provider charged a fee when you want to terminate a subscription, that could be considered a barrier to switching. But the CRTC already has rules about early termination fees.

Take a look at the CRTC’s Notice of Consultation and you will see how the CRTC is setting itself up for ridicule. The Commission asked one of the carriers if it had ceased billing customers $25 for shipping a device ordered online. A shipping charge?

A recent article by Canadian Press highlights some of the mixed-up thinking at the Commission. A CRTC executive seemed to argue for greater transparency in the prices paid by consumers, while opposing shipping fees for precisely those kinds of charges. Wouldn’t such discrete costs provide such transparency? “If you have to increase your prices so be it, but do that through the front door. Charge a price, don’t surprise consumers with price increases in the middle of the contract, don’t have these special little fees that come out of nowhere.”

Isn’t that the approach being taken by the carriers? If you want a device shipped to you, is a shipping charge unreasonable? If you lose or destroy your SIM card, who should pay for that?

In its March Regulatory Policy (that took effect June 12), the CRTC observed that recent amendments to the Telecommunications Act broadly prohibit activation and modification fees, while recognizing “that prohibiting fees related to installation services at a customer’s premises could have a negative effect on future broadband Internet rollout because those installation services represent actual, necessary, and sometimes significant costs.” The CRTC also said “fees related to optional services and products do not fall under the category of “activation or modification fees” related to the telecommunications service itself.”

So the Policy set out a new definition, stating:

Activation or modification fee

Any fee incurred as a result of activating a new retail telecommunications service plan or modifying an existing one, except for reasonable fees related to the physical installation of a telecommunications service at a customer’s premises or fees related to additional products or services the customer has explicitly chosen to purchase.

If the rules need further clarification, then the CRTC should fix its self-inflicted ambiguity. Alternatively, it would be a good time for the Commission to back down and let the marketplace work.

Last week, The Hill Times published a Policy Briefing supplement looking at Rural & Remote Broadband.

I was asked to prepare an Op-Ed for that supplement.

Regular readers will notice that it was largely based on a piece I published last month.

Canada’s national broadband objective is defined as having high-speed (50 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up) connectivity available to all Canadians by the year 2030. I wonder if it may be time for us to declare victory and move on to setting a new objective: increasing adoption among those who still aren’t connected.

Various broadband funding programs (such as the Universal Broadband Fund – UBF, Connect to Innovate, provincial initiatives, the CRTC’s Broadband Fund, etc.) have collectively pushed high‑speed connectivity deeper into rural and remote regions than ever before. Fibre builds now reach thousands of communities once considered uneconomic, and latest generation wireless services have filled many mid‑density gaps. Yet despite billions of dollars of investment, a stubborn last 1–2% of households remain unserved, particularly in the North and in the most sparsely populated rural pockets.

This is where Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks should be added to the broadband connectivity toolkit. Indeed, we might consider whether direct satellite-to-device is a satisfactory mobile solution for those remote communities currently lacking terrestrial-based coverage.

LEO systems operate a few hundred kilometres above Earth, far closer than traditional geostationary satellites. This enables low‑latency, high‑throughput broadband rivalling terrestrial options. Starlink, the most mature LEO provider, already offers:

• High‑speed service with typical download speeds ranging from 45–280 Mbps.
• Low latency (25–60 ms), suitable for video calls, cloud apps, and real‑time services.
• Global availability, including remote and northern regions.

Other LEO constellations are literally on the horizon. Why isn’t LEO considered to be an obvious tool to fulfil Canada’s broadband ambition? For households beyond the economic reach of fibre or microwave backhaul, LEO solutions eliminate the need for towers, rights‑of‑way, or construction seasons. A dish, a clear view of the sky, and power are enough to provide connectivity.

Based on publicly available coverage maps and service availability data, existing LEO broadband constellations cover all populated regions of Canada.

Where availability issues arise, they are typically due to temporary local capacity constraints, obstructions due to trees, terrain, or building orientation, or weather‑related installation challenges. These are all easily solvable problems, at a cost far less than the $10-20,000 (and more) per household being spent for terrestrial solutions in some communities. Four years ago, the government contributed more than $46.6 million to connect 182 households in northern Ontario, more than $250,000 per household for broadband in an area where houses sell for less than that.

LEO solutions provide full national orbital coverage and can close the final connectivity gap quickly, affordably, and sustainably. One might say that we have walked the last mile of last mile connectivity.

Using LEO, we could (but shouldn’t) provide a permanent subsidy to equalize the prices paid by rural subscribers to those being paid in urban centres. We need to think carefully about subsidies for rural broadband broadband expansion. Subsidies should be based on financial need, not based on geography. There are people in urban centres who need lower cost everything, just as there are people in rural and remote communities who do not need financial aid. For example, a little over a year ago, I observed “Median household incomes in the north are considerably higher than in the rest of Canada.”

With technology now offering a reasonable option for broadband connectivity Canada’s broadband strategy needs to focus on getting the remaining unserved households to get online. This is no longer an engineering challenge that can be solved with money, but one of understanding the factors that inhibit increased adoption in both rural and urban settings.

Programs such as Internet for Good from TELUS, and Connected for Success from Rogers, and the national Connecting Families initiative have made broadband even more affordable for many disadvantaged households, fully funded by Canada’s telecommunications industry. But, we have also learned that there are issues beyond affordability inhibiting some people from connecting.

Integrating LEO into regulatory and policy frameworks, while preserving private sector investment incentives, will allow us to declare victory in meeting Canada’s national broadband objective. It is time to engage partnerships between service providers, government social service agencies, and training facilities to drive adoption, ensuring no Canadian household is left offline.

As news emerges that the Universal Broadband Fund (UBF) will not be renewed, we should turn our minds toward the next connectivity challenge: transitioning from building networks to maintaining them.

For more than a decade, Canada’s national connectivity agenda has been defined by expansion. Billions in federal and provincial funding, paired with unprecedented private‑sector investment, pushed high‑speed broadband deeper into rural and remote communities than ever before. With the UBF now expected to sunset as Canada approaches its 98 per cent coverage target, it’s tempting to declare victory.

But, the next phase of connectivity spending will be harder, less glamorous, and far more politically neglected. Canada’s the next connectivity challenge means shifting our focus from funding broadband network expansion to figuring out how to pay to maintain those networks. At a recent conference, I expressed concern that we are not ready for the implications.

Expansion is a capital project. Maintenance is a lifecycle obligation. One is celebrated with over-sized ceremonial cheques and ribbon‑cuttings; the other is an ongoing cost centre that rarely earns political credit. Yet as climate pressures intensify and networks age, maintenance will determine whether Canada’s connectivity gains are durable or fragile.

The first challenge is resiliency. Wildfires, floods, and extreme storms are no longer rare events. Operators are reinforcing towers, burying fibre, hardening power systems, and redesigning routes to avoid single points of failure. These investments are essential, but they are also expensive — and they don’t fit neatly into the traditional “build more coverage” narrative that has dominated public policy. A kilometre of fibre washed out by a flood costs the same to replace whether the community has 50 residents or 5,000. Maintenance is indifferent to density.

The second challenge is sustainability of rural builds. Many of the last‑mile projects funded over the past five years were viable because governments subsidized the initial capital. But the long‑term operating costs — repairs, upgrades, backhaul, power, and labour — fall entirely on service providers. In low‑density areas, those costs can exceed revenue. Without a policy framework that acknowledges such lifecycle realities, Canada risks a slow erosion of service quality in precisely the communities that were hardest to connect in the first place.

A third challenge is technology refresh cycles. Fibre may be durable, but the electronics aren’t. Wireless networks require continual upgrades to remain efficient and secure. Satellite constellations evolve rapidly. The policy conversation has not yet caught up to the fact that “connected once” does not mean “connected forever.” The cost curve of maintenance is rising even as the political appetite for funding is declining.

What Canada needs now is a Connectivity Maintenance Strategy — a shift from one‑time capital injections to predictable, outcome‑based support for resiliency, lifecycle upgrades, and climate adaptation. This doesn’t mean recreating the Universal Broadband Fund. It means recognizing that connectivity is critical infrastructure, and critical infrastructure requires ongoing stewardship, especially in high cost serving areas.

For more than a century and a half, Canadian carriers have built our national telecom networks. Canada spent the last decade extending advanced networks to rural and remote regions. The challenge for the next decade will be keeping those networks standing, resilient, and modern.

Maintenance may not be headline‑grabbing, but it will define whether our connectivity achievements endure.

Sometimes it must feel like the CRTC is just spinning their wheels – we’re running the engine but not getting anywhere.

Monday’s Globe and Mail reports that “The federal government is planning a series of steps that would require the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, to roll back key decisions it has made implementing the controversial Online Streaming Act.”

For the past few years, a substantial amount of effort at the regulator has been focused on implementing the “modernization” of Canada’s Broadcasting Act driven by the Online Streaming Act.

Three years ago, I observed that the Online Streaming Act was driving the CRTC to budget a 40% increase in staff levels with a 60% higher cost. As it has for the past few years, the CRTC’s 2026-27 Departmental Plan identifies “Modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework” at the top of its list of key priorities.

How many staff years of effort – by the Commission and by participants in these multi-year regulatory proceedings – are being squandered by this latest government policy flip-flop?

As I flipped through CRTC Departmental Plans, I noticed that the plans for the past 4 years have been signed by 4 different Cabinet Ministers responsible for the Commission:

• 2026-27: Marc Miller
• 2025-26: Steven Guilbeault
• 2024-25: Pascale St-Onge
• 2023-24: Pablo Rodriguez

The lack of stability from the policy leadership doesn’t help.

Similar observations can be made on another key file. While “Modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework” is first on the list of key CRTC priorities, “Promoting competition and investment for Internet and cellphone services” is next. I have written extensively on the investment part of that priority.

A CRTC letter last Friday serves as an exhibit for spinning their wheels on the competition side. The CRTC file 1011-NOC2023-0056 has housed follow-up to its 2023 “Review of the wholesale high-speed access service framework”. Three years into the process, the Commission realized that it is working from stale data:

Commission staff notes that the Cable Carriers submitted their initial Phase II cost studies between June 2023 and April 2024. However, Commission staff is concerned that the costing information currently on record may no longer reflect the prospective incremental costs of providing these services. Consequently, to ensure that final rates are just and reasonable and reflect the current technological and economic environment, the Cable Carriers are directed to file new Phase II cost studies, including all associated tables, using a five-year study period starting 1 January 2026 and incorporating the most recent available data for equipment costs, labour rates, and network demand.

These new studies need to be filed by September 3.

Once again, I think we need to ask how many cycles have been burned – the CRTC staff and industry participants – by working with the cost studies now ruled to be out of date. What does this mean for the entire wholesale framework?

The 2026-27 Departmental Plan indicates total expenses for the CRTC are forecasted to be $123.6M, up roughly 50% from the $81.6M from the 2022-23 Plan, with staff levels growing from 547 to 740 over that same period.

There is a real cost to running the engine and spinning those wheels. Sometimes, I just shake my head and wonder how much tread is left on these old tires.

Like most of you, I’m tired of spam.

When my phone rings, most of the time my device shows it is “Likely Spam”. In such cases, if the call actually connects, I end up talking to an overseas call centre telling me their air-duct cleaning crews are in my neighbourhood and can offer me a special rate. Or, people claiming to be calling from the “promotions department” of [insert name of phone company], offering deals too good to be true. Or, it is a recording from scammers claiming they are my credit card company (or Amazon) flagging potential fraudulent transactions – ironic, right?

And then there are the emails that get past my spam filters. Somehow, I got added to a US-based medical professional mailing list and I have been receiving all kinds of messages targeting a doctor in the Phoenix area. (As an aside, I wonder if the doctor in Phoenix is receiving telecom newsletters.) That medical mailing list is being sold to pharmaceutical companies, training companies, real estate firms, auto dealers, and anyone else who wants to reach doctors in Arizona. Most of the time, I click unsubscribe and that ends it – but just for one company.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an invitation to a webinar about some new treatments for drug-resistant bacteria. As fascinating as new antibiotics might be, my evenings are tied up. (I just don’t want to miss watching the Stanley Cup playoffs.) Most significantly, there was no ‘unsubscribe’ button. The sender was from a company with a market capitalization measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars. In other words, this was not your classic spam.

In Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) lingo, this was an unsolicited commercial electronic message sent by a company with pretty deep pockets. They should know better. Even in the US, there are rules known as CAN-SPAM that cover these kinds of things.

And like I said, I’ve gotten kind of tired of spam. So, I decided to stop ignoring it. I dealt with the source directly. This is a real company, with revenues that are approximately double the entire Canadian telecom sector. I figure they have an army of lawyers who would not want some renegade salesperson to be harming the company brand.

I called their Canadian customer service line and reached a supervisor who was actually quite sympathetic. From her, I learned the name of the Canadian head of legal, and from the corporate website, I found the name of the global chief legal officer. The company uses a standardized email address scheme which enabled me to send my official complaint in writing.

I had an immediate automated response from the customer service email address with a case number. I heard back from the Canadian legal office within a couple of hours, letting me know that the team appreciated the importance and was investigating. Within a week, I heard from the US-based corporate chief privacy officer, who identified the steps taken to remove my address from various company distribution lists. The company was still working to identify the third-party source that originally provided my information. A few days later, I was updated with the name of the list provider and provided with assurances that my information was removed from their databases.

A review of my past posts about CASL will show you that I was never a fan of the legislation. I continue to think that it has done more harm to legitimate business communications while doing little to reduce harmful and fraudulent spam. Twenty years ago, I wrote how people can take matters into their own hands.

So I did.

No regulatory submission. No fines were issued. I was fed up with the medical / pharma spam, so I dealt with it. At least those annoying health care related emails will slow down, even if not fully come to a stop.

Now, I wonder if I say “yes” to getting my ducts cleaned, could I get those calls to stop for a couple years?