ISPs can resell wholesale service to other providers: CRTC

The CRTC has sided with a small telecom that was reselling wholesale internet service from Bragg Communications Inc.’s Eastlink to other internet service providers, despite Eastlink’s objections. “In the Commission’s view, a competitive provider reselling on a wholesale basis is an example of an innovative service offering that facilitates increased competition in the retail market,” the CRTC said in Tuesday’s decision. The decision looks to have wider consequences on the market, affecting wholesale customers of other Canadian telecoms. The CRTC said that the terms of the tariff between Eastlink and Frontier Networks Inc. should be changed to explicitly permit reselling of services, and launched a separate proceeding asking large cablecos to provide comments about why a similar change shouldn’t be applied to their contracts with other providers. Rogers Communications Inc., Cogeco Inc., Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron have until Jan. 28 to respond, with the deadline for other intervenors set for Feb. 12. The decision caps a Part 1 process that began in April when Frontier filed an application with the CRTC. Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) spokesman and CEO of Distributel Communications Ltd. Matt Stein told The Wire Report at the time that such reselling is common. He said in email Tuesday that the “decision makes very clear that the CRTC values the contribution that competitive ISPs make not only to retail customers directly, but also to each other, as yet another way of enabling competition.” In May, the regulator issued an interim decision in favour of Frontier, which Tuesday’s decision makes permanent. In its intervention, TekSavvy Solutions Inc. pointed out that it has wholesale customers who resell TekSavvy’s internet service across the country. Andy Kaplan-Myrth, vice-president of regulatory affairs at TekSavvy said in an email Tuesday that some companies were built on the assumption that this was a "valid, permitted, legitimate business.” When the Eastlink-Frontier case first surfaced, it cast doubt on that assumption, leading TekSavvy’s wholesale customers to worry their existence was being put at risk. “By supporting Frontier’s position and directing Eastlink to amend its tariff to clearly allow downstream resale, the CRTC has restored some measure of confidence,” Kaplan-Myrth said. But he added that there are still a number of significant decisions in front of the CRTC that continue to cause uncertainty in the industry. CNOC is asking the CRTC to reconsider aspects of its disaggregated wholesale internet service regime to diffuse what a CNOC lawyer has called “an existential crisis for our industry.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca

ISPs can resell wholesale service to other providers: CRTC

News | December 11, 2018

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ISPs can resell wholesale service to other providers: CRTC

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