The Quebec telecommunications company Cogeco promises to “fight to the end” to overthrow a federal decision that could kill competition among independent Internet suppliers, she alleges, and by the very fact the competitiveness of Canada.
Should we allow or not allow large internet suppliers-Bell, Rogers, Telus-to access the fiber network of their competitors at wholesale price, as is the case for small distributors since 1998 with the traditional network? This is the question that the Minister of Industry will have to decide, Mélanie Joly, in the middle of August, while the affair was scabing his way to the Federal Court of Appeal.
The next few weeks will mark a decisive moment in the trench war which mainly opposes the company Telus and its regional competitors. Faced with calls to the minister, Telus is carrying out a real public relations campaign not to change a controversial decision of the Canadian Radiation and Telecommunications Council (CRTC).
“The last battlefield is now the cabinet’s table,” alerts Telus in an online petition, in reference to a highly anticipated decision by Minister Joly, who must determine by August 13 if she enters or disavowed the decision allowing her to have access to fiber optical infrastructures of her competitors.
Since 1998, the federal regulator forces telecommunications companies to give access to their traditional high -speed Internet network to other players, at a fixed price, in order to increase competition and reduce prices. However, since last year, the CRTC also forces the sharing of internet networks by fiber optics, even to large companies, outside the territory that they already cover.
« [Cette politique] threatens the viability of the competition of regional suppliers and small competitors, ”read a legal challenge tabled in the Federal Court of Appeal on July 18 by regional players Cogeco and Eastlink.
Cogeco, which has its own infrastructure in Quebec and Ontario, was scandalized to see the CRTC maintain its decision on appeal on June 20. The company would have liked the wholesale price of the internet by fiber to be reserved for small distributors, otherwise the big telecommunications could position themselves as wholesalers without building new infrastructures essential to the country’s competitiveness.
Low competition
The CRTC decision has had the effect of now allowing Telus to offer, for example, the Internet by fiber to Montreal Internet users-customers who are located outside of its own network, which is concentrated in Alberta, British Columbia and in eastern Quebec, a territory acquired from its merger with Quebec-Téléphone in 2001.
“You need regulations to reduce barriers to the entrance for smaller suppliers and independent suppliers. The CRTC clearly does the opposite, ”denounces the head of the legal and corporate affairs of Cogeco, Paul Cowling, in an interview with Duty.
He claims that the CRTC violates the directives given to him by the federal government. In 2023, the Minister of Industry at the time, François-Philippe Champagne, commissioned the CRTC to create a regime capable of encouraging “all forms of competition and investment”.
Cogeco alleges that to allow large access to the Internet by fiber in Telus, Bell or Rogers will consolidate the domination of these three major players, and will increase the long -term prices. “It will offend the economy when we need it the least,” says Mr. Cowling.
Its argument is taken up by the Center for the Defense of the Public Interest, a consumer defense organization that campaigns to more strictly supervise large telecommunications companies. “Bell, Telus and Rogers, already have 90 % of the market. If we give them the right to share their networks with each other, they will still be able to control the market ”, criticizes its managing director, Geoff White.
Drop in prices
By confirming in June its 2024 decision, the CRTC writes that proof does not demonstrate that the access extended to the fiber optical infrastructures in the competition. According to his logic, Telus becomes a “new choice” for Montreal Internet users if he earns the right to resell internet access by fiber from the network of a competitor.
Nazim Benhadid, head of technological services at Telus, quotes Statistics Canada to say that prices have already dropped in Quebec thanks to their access to wholesale price for the internet by fiber. He maintains that the company still puts the package to pass it “where the competition refused to invest”, as evidenced by the two billion dollars in investments announced last week. This also gives him five years of exclusivity on the highest speeds, according to the rules in place.
“We will for example build fiber where there is none, in a community in Montreal, Laval or Ontario. Then, Bell, Rogers [comme n’importe quel concurrent] will also have access to it, ”he explains to Duty.
Recent analyzes of the National Bank and the Bank of America consulted by The duty However, have advanced that the new regulatory framework of the internet by fiber should discourage long -term investment in telecommunications infrastructure. This is what the Bell and Rogers companies support, which are also hostile to the idea of sharing their network with Telus.
Mr. Benhadid, from Telus, also unchecks an arrow on his various competitors, whom he accuses of wanting to protect their market share in Canada while investing abroad. “I would invite you to look at what are the strategies of these companies. »»
By email, the CRTC ensures that it takes “measures to increase the choice, affordability and investments in high speed internet services”, without commenting on the appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal. Mélanie Joly’s office did not return repeated requests to Duty on this subject.
