PIAC’s submission supports DoT’s petition to open Canada to true “mobile virtual network operators”, or “MVNOs” which are new cellphone competitors seeking to serve Canadians across Canada.

“The CRTC issued a ‘fake MVNO’ decision to favour only existing cellphone companies and to stop innovative wireless providers like Data on Tap from entering the Canadian market,” stated John Lawford, PIAC’s Executive Director. “But the Rogers-Shaw merger blew up this fiction and showed how fragile the expensive Canadian wireless market is and how far the regulator had to go to prop it up,” he added.

Data On Tap’s application asks the federal Cabinet to overturn the CRTC’s restrictive MVNO definition and to allow true MVNOs, like DoT and many others that could bring Canadians cheaper wireless service now, which the government, recently returned after an election, claimed to support.

PIAC’s submission in support of DoT’s petition is found here and is also posted on the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic’s “Spectrum and Telecommunications – Petitions to the Governor in Council“.

For more information, please contact:

John Lawford (he/him)
Executive Director/General Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
285 McLeod Street – Suite 200
Ottawa, ON K2P 1A1
jlawford@piac.ca
613-562-4002 ext 125 [new!]

Fighting for consumer rights

@CanadaPIAC

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John Lawford, PIAC Executive Director and General Counsel, decried the decision, saying: “Both the CRTC and the federal government lost their nerve in dealing with the major Internet providers. They backed away from a fair wholesale rate that would have increased consumer choice and lowered internet prices for Canadian consumers.”

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decision today is a reconsideration of a previous CRTC order that ordered major Internet service providers such as Bell Canada, TELUS and Rogers sell wholesale access to their networks to allow competitors to offer their own services at affordable rates. The CRTC had, in their first decision, set a much lower rate than the rate approved today. The CRTC also had ordered rebates to small Internet providers that had paid more than the first decision’s final rate – but today’s decision largely removed that part of the order.

The major Internet providers launched a three-pronged attack on the CRTC’s original order: appealing to the courts (which dismissed their case); petitioning the government; and asking the CRTC for today’s decision. The Petition to the government was dismissed but accompanied by language that the major Internet providers claimed may have helped direct the CRTC to increase the rate.

Lawford noted that without most of the previously ordered rate repayments and with today’s higher rates, consumers may see some of the smaller Internet providers, who typically offer cheaper Internet service, go out of business in the near future.  “Consumers need affordable Internet more each day” noted Lawford. “But the government and the CRTC clearly were afraid to support competition during a pandemic and ahead of an election. They should fear consumer anger far more.”

For more information, please contact:

John Lawford

Executive Director and General Counsel

Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)

613-562-4002 ext. 125 (New)

(613) 447-8125 (cell)

jlawford@piac.ca

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