Canada Orders Phone Companies to Offer Wholesale Access to Fiber-Optic Broadband

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said the decision was triggered by worries over a decline in competition in internet services.

Wholesale-based internet providers, which lease network space from bigger telecoms, were losing market share, the regulator said. For instance, it said large internet-service providers have acquired smaller rivals, and that has left “many Canadians with fewer options for high-speed Internet services.”

On a temporary basis, the regulator said it would compel Canada’s big telephone companies–BCE and Telus–to provide wholesale access to their fiber-optic networks, starting next May. The ruling is limited to the country’s two biggest provinces, Ontario and Quebec, home to about 60% of the Canadian population.

“Higher-speed internet service, for which demand continues to grow rapidly, is a market segment where wholesale-based competitors have fallen behind incumbent companies,” the CRTC said in its decision. It added that independent service-providers lack a “practical” way to access the telephone companies’ fiber-optic internet.

“This decision provides a temporary and expedited solution to those problems,” the regulator said. It added that it expects this would help wholesale-based competitors offer fiber-broadband services to about five million households. It also set a rate schedule BCE and Telus must abide by.

Representatives for BCE and Telus weren’t immediately available.

The regulatory order comes as Canada’s Liberal government has pledged to strengthen competition rules to ensure consumers get access to products and services at lower prices. The governing Liberals trail their rival Conservatives by a sizable margin in public-opinion polls, in part, political analysts say, for their inability to address voters’ concerns over cost-of-living issues.

Write to Paul Vieira at [email protected]