{"id":321616,"date":"2025-08-06T04:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T04:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/321616\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T04:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T04:41:13","slug":"ottawa-should-reverse-the-crtcs-decision-on-wholesale-internet-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/321616\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa should reverse the CRTC\u2019s decision on wholesale internet access"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Nathan Simington is a former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. He was born and raised in Saskatchewan. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The federal government faces a simple question: Should Canada support a diverse, competitive internet ecosystem, including regional internet service providers, or ISPs, that invest where incumbents decline to build? <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">If the answer is yes, Ottawa must act before Aug. 13 to reverse a recent Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission policy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">No healthy competition policy anywhere supports regulatory remedies for large, dominant incumbents \u2013 not in the United States, where I served on the FCC, not in Europe, and not in Canada. This country\u2019s independent and regional ISPs face a serious threat: not from market forces, but from the unintended consequences of regulation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">A recent CRTC decision mandating wholesale access to existing broadband networks risks undermining competition. It lets Canada\u2019s Big Three national incumbents \u2013 Rogers, Bell and Telus \u2013 access each other\u2019s networks, as well as those built by smaller regional ISPs often in areas the major carriers chose not to serve. As a Canadian from rural Saskatchewan, I have a personal understanding of how important it is to connect those underserved areas. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/business\/article-crtc-telecoms-resell-internet-services\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CRTC upholds decision allowing large telecoms to resell internet services on each other\u2019s networks<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Wholesale access was meant to let smaller firms use incumbent infrastructure. It was never meant to let Canada\u2019s Big Three piggyback on the existing infrastructure of others, especially the hard-won investments of smaller, more localized competitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">In response, Eastlink, Cogeco, SaskTel and the Competitive Network Operators of Canada, or CNOC, filed a petition asking the federal cabinet to rescind or vary the policy. If granted, the petition would prohibit the Big Three from leveraging regulation to get even bigger. Granting the petition would restore the confidence and clarity smaller providers need to keep building, ensuring more competition and affordable services for Canadian consumers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">If cabinet does not act, the outcome is predictable. Regional ISPs will be unable to compete against the bundles and scale of the dominant national incumbents, and will be unable to invest in competitive connectivity while sharing their networks with the Big Three firms that already control 87 percent of the market. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">For the Big Three, it is a no-risk financial option; for the rest, it is a growing disincentive to invest. This will make the Canadian market less competitive, less entrepreneurial and less incentivized to build.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Canada also risks becoming a negative international outlier by drifting into a model that, unlike any regime I encountered in comparative regulatory work, fuses incumbent privilege with disincentives to build. This regime would chill network construction and impose significant barriers for new competitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/business\/commentary\/article-ottawa-must-stop-the-crtcs-misguided-dogmatic-internet-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Opinion: Ottawa must stop the CRTC\u2019s misguided, dogmatic internet decision<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Allowing the Big Three to access wholesale services, even outside their home territories, gives them the ability to bundle wireless, video and internet into one offering. This lets them undercut regional rivals and exploit scale advantages. In the short term, this may look good for consumers. In the long term, it drives consolidation and harms the very small ISPs most likely to serve rural, Indigenous and remote areas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">What\u2019s more, the Big Three already enjoy significant potential access through fixed wireless. In the United States, all net broadband subscriber growth since 2022 has come from 5G fixed wireless from major carriers at the expense of cable. In Canada, the Big Three have all the tools they need to reach consumers today, with no need for further support in wholesale access.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">If Ottawa fails to act, the stakes are clear. Canada can have open access or fair access, but not both under this policy. A balanced regulatory regime should reward those who build and enable meaningful competition. Dominant providers don\u2019t get regulatory relief in any reasonable competition policy. The most recent CRTC decision breaks that balance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Cabinet has both the authority and the precedent to fix it. The petition filed by Eastlink, Cogeco, SaskTel, and CNOC is grounded in the public record, aligns with cabinet\u2019s prior directives, and serves the broader national interest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Canadians deserve more than three options for internet service. They deserve real competition, durable investment and infrastructure that reaches everyone. Broadband policy should be about improving and extending connectivity \u2013 enabling the competitive, entrepreneurial investment that makes it possible. Cabinet must act to protect that future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Simington is a former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. He was born and raised in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3161],"tags":[6934,6925,6935,1500,6918,6936,943,6917,6930,6931,6927,6919,6916,1700,2266,728,6929,6923,6946,6920,6921,1234,3082,6926,388,3611,6607,603,6941,6942,6944,6939,6943,6937,6940,6922,6932,6933,285,3027,6938,6924,53,183,6928,16,15,727,263,6945],"class_list":{"0":"post-321616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-internet","31":"tag-life-news","32":"tag-lifestyle","33":"tag-local-news","34":"tag-manitoba","35":"tag-national-news","36":"tag-new-brunswick","37":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","38":"tag-northwest-territories","39":"tag-nova-scotia","40":"tag-nunavut","41":"tag-ontario","42":"tag-pei","43":"tag-photos","44":"tag-political-news","45":"tag-political-opinion","46":"tag-politics","47":"tag-politics-news","48":"tag-quebec","49":"tag-sports-news","50":"tag-technology","51":"tag-travel","52":"tag-trudeau","53":"tag-uk","54":"tag-united-kingdom","55":"tag-us-news","56":"tag-world-news","57":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}