The Canadian Radio Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) has updated its carrier framework to make it easier for regional carriers like Videotron, Eastlink and others to compete nationally.
As it stands right now, there are really only two national networks. Rogers and a joint network between Bell and Telus. That means if you were a regional carrier who wanted to negotiate a national network roaming wholesale deal for your customers, you had to deal with Rogers.
Now, the CRTC has updated that ruling with a clause that says if carriers make a national roaming deal with either Bell or Telus, they will now get access to the same shared network that Bell and Telus use. This should give smaller telecom players a few more avenues to deal with now that they can work with any of the big three to offer a network expansion.
This is similar to a rule the CRTC put in place in 2022 that lets MVNOs (Mobile virtual Network operators, like PC Mobile and Speak Out Wireless). If you’re unclear what the difference is, regional carriers operate their own infrastructure in their regions, while MVNOs just piggyback on other networks. In 2022, MVNOs were all the rage and the CRTC really thought that they might be the key to bringing more competition, but a few years on it seems like that was mostly a pipe dream.
That said, after Freedom Mobile was sold to Videotron, it seems like that’s opened the CRTC’s eyes towards the power that regional carriers can have when they can actually offer competitive plans that people can use all over the country.
As expected, the big three weren’t huge fans of the new CRTC decision, with Telus and Bell both coming out against the new change for a myriad of reasons that feel cooked up in a lab by lawyers. Bell also played the only card it has by claiming that, “regulation that would interfere with highly complex, confidential, and competitively sensitive network-sharing agreements would distort market dynamics and undermine economic incentives for network investment, according to the CRTC documentation.”
If this sounds familiar, this is the move Bell throws whenever the CRTC tries to do something to increase competition. The telecom giant has claimed to have stopped its fibre internet infrastructure as well, since the CRTC has also ruled that it must offer fair wholesale rates so other carriers (small and big) can use the faster infrastructure of the big three.
Regional carriers like Cogeco, Eastlink, Ecotel, and Quebecor (Videotron/Freedom/Fizz) all supported the new roaming agreement.
In the end, the Commission sees Bell and Telus’ shared network as a whole, not two separate parts, since neither Bell nor Telus has full claim to it and each owns parts of the infrastructure. It basically boils down to this: If Bell and Telus can market themselves as having nationwide coverage while retaining significant cost advantages, that should count as one network to the other smaller carriers as well.
You can read the full details of the ruling and some of the carrier responses to it in the CRTC documentation.
Source: CRTC
