Bell responds to Videotron

February 21, 2006

In a letter to the editor of CARTT, Bell regulatory chief, Mirko Bibic responded to Videotron’s charges that Bell was trying to kill competition in phone service. Back on February 1, Videotron’s president and CEO, Robert Dépatie wrote:

While it used to take the telephone companies up to several months to get approval for new rates, the CRTC is now guaranteeing that it will deal with their rate applications within 10 days. Most disturbingly, the phone companies can now file their rate applications ex parte, i.e. without other interested parties being informed. No cable company has ever received this type of confidential treatment for its rate applications and supporting arguments.

In Bibic’s reply, he charged back:

No cable company ever needed regulatory permission to change prices or service features on anything other than their basic service, and even that was deregulated soon after satellite TV arrived. No cable company ever faced a one year prohibition on contacting its customers who switch to a competitor. No cable company was ever prevented from pricing differently in different regions of its territory, or restricted from introducing promotions for its services. No cable company has ever had to receive prior approval for bundles of its multiple services like internet, cable and telephone.

The battle is on. Consumers can only benefit from the battle of the big guys – and no one needs to start a charity drive for either of these combatants.

Telemarketers, Beware!

February 20, 2006

The CRTC has come out with its Public Notice on the Do Not Call list for Telemarketers

The first deadline is March 6 to simply register as an interested party.

Comments are due by May 10, but there are some parts that will require comments by March 20 – especially if you want them to be taken more seriously by the various parties (subject to reply, etc…)

CRTC Windfall for Incumbents

February 20, 2006

The CRTC’s Decision last week for the Deferral Account was a gift for Bell and TELUS capital budgets. The Decision takes money that had been accumulating and requires that the incumbent carriers spend 95% on expanding broadband access to underserved territories and take the rest to improve access for the disabled.

BC and Ontario should be the biggest winners – Alberta already spent tax dollars on its SuperNet project; Quebec’s remote territories, in general, don’t belong to Bell. We’ll want to watch to see what happens with Fixed Wireless.

Alternative Suppliers of Digital Network Access Facilities 2005 Update

January 29, 2016

Abstract

High speed telecommunications services are increasingly provided using new deployments of fibre optic based access facilities. For these new optical access technologies and related services, we believe that traditional telecom carriers have no incumbent network advantage.

Fibre optic facilities in the access network can be characterized as a “green field” environment for incumbent telephone companies and new entrants alike. Both classes of carriers must build new facilities, with similar challenges, similar risks and similar opportunities for success. In most major centres, and many smaller communities, alternative suppliers of fibre optic transmission facilities have emerged. Beyond the incumbent telephone companies, there are a number of companies that are leveraging existing businesses, and existing rights-of-way derived from these businesses, in order to compete in the provision of fibre optic-based broadband telecommunications services.

Electric utilities and cable companies have been particularly active in the exploitation of their outside plant resources and their available rights-of-way in order to cost-effectively enter the broadband communications marketplace. As a result, in Bell Canada territory, a vibrant competitive market for high speed digital network access facilities can be observed.

In this report, we identify the major sources of competitive supply of fibre optic based digital network access facilities and conclude that alternative suppliers for these facilities exist and are firmly entrenched in many geographic areas.

PDF Download the full report.

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