In Canada, as in the UK and many other countries (including the USA, until the mid-2000s), the big telcos are required to wholesale their lines to small, upstart competitors as payback for access to rights-of-way and municipal infrastructure. This results in more competition, faster connections, and cheaper service for residents.

Bell Canada, the company that owes its fortune to nearly a century of public investment, is fighting that rule, saying that it and it alone should have the right to sell access to its new fiber networks. The CRTC, Canada's telcoms regulator, told them to pound sand, but they've appealed to the new Liberal government.

John Tory, the mayor of Toronto — and a former cable executive — has taken up their cause, sending a letter to the federal government demanding that his city's electronic nervous system be owned by a single company that gets to enjoys billions in public subsidies in the form of rights-of-way and access to infrastructure, with no public duty and no competition. He was joined in this position by Ottawa mayor Jim Watson.

By contrast, the amazing mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, submitted a 28-page letter to the feds saying that letting other companies use Bell's lines didn't go far enough: Calgary and other cities should build and operate their own electronic infrastructure.

The Canadian government has received many duplicative comments in support of Bell, many using identical language to the letters sent by Bell's own top executives.

The federal government decision on the appeal may be months away, but the competing submissions paint dramatically different pictures of how Canadian cities are addressing the critical need for affordable high-speed Internet services. It suggests that Toronto and Ottawa are seemingly content to wait for the large telecom companies to install new networks and have no problem with the higher consumer and business costs that reduced competition would bring. Calgary, meanwhile, is actively building competitive networks, monitoring municipal developments around the world, and promoting a more open, competitive environment. All the mayors claim their cities are working to become leading hubs of innovation, yet only one seems to be doing much about it.



Why Mayors John Tory and Jim Watson Are Against Competition for Access to Affordable Fast Broadband

[Michael Geist]

(Image: John Tory, Ontario Chamber of Commmerce, CC-BY-ND)