Regulator to allow competitors wholesale access to Bell Canada FTTH

30 June 2016 | Alan Burkitt-Gray

Canada’s telecoms regulator has thrown out an appeal by Bell Canada to review a decision to open up its broadband networks to competitors.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has said it “finds that Bell Canada has failed to demonstrate substantial doubt as to the correctness of the Commission’s original decision on the basis of an error in law”.



In July 2015, the CRTC said that large incumbent local exchange carriers and cable TV operators in the provinces of Ontario and Québec would be mandated to transition from an aggregated to a disaggregated wholesale high-speed access service model.



Under the original ruling, now reinforced by the CRTC’s decision to uphold it, rival operators will be able to buy wholesale access to Bell Canada’s fibre networks into customers’ homes.



Bell Canada told the CRTC and the Canadian federal government that wholesale access would reduce the return on its investment and suggested that only companies that also build their own fibre networks should be able to buy access to its networks.



The government has already turned down Bell Canada’s request. The CRTC said: “The Commission denies Bell Canada’s application.”



