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“Hence, we believe that companies will be able to charge more for Internet than what they’re charging right now.”

The CRTC ruled Thursday that television distributors will have to offer customers a “skinny basic” cable package for no more than $25 per month.

Customers will also have the freedom to add on individual channels or small bundles of channels under a “pick-and-pay” model.

The CRTC made its ruling following a series of public hearings last fall called Let’s Talk TV, which asked Canadians for their input on the future of television.

Most customers will see some cost savings overall, as they will no longer need to pay for as many television channels as they have in the past, Yaghi said.

He also noted that Internet is a higher-margin business, so companies like Bell, Rogers and Telus don’t need to replace each dollar of lost television revenue with a dollar of Internet revenue. That means cost increases on Internet bills will not be too dramatic.

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“It’s not a dollar for a dollar in terms of the bill for the consumer,” Yaghi said.

However, experts say consumers could be left with fewer viewing options, as a number of specialty channels that once benefited from being bundled with more popular products may be forced out of business.

“Consumers will have more options as to how to acquire content, but they may not actually have more choice,” said Lawson Hunter, a regulatory lawyer at Stikeman Elliott and a former executive at BCE.