Small ISPs ask CRTC to let them offer wireless services

TORONTO – Canada’s small Internet service providers are appealing a recent CRTC decision on wholesale wireless access because they want to offer their own wireless services using the networks of Bell, Telus and Rogers.

The Canadian Network Operators Consortium, or CNOC, wants big telecom companies to be required to provide access to their wireless networks, similar to how they’re required to provide access to their cable and phone lines.

In the CRTC’s decision released in May, the regulator said it would not mandate access to wireless networks to allow third-party companies to resell wireless services.

Bell, Telus and Rogers had argued that the case for building new infrastructure would be undermined if third-party carriers could piggyback on the bigger networks without building any towers of their own.

CNOC said in its appeal that it wants the CRTC to mandate that the wireless connection to the consumer is shared but each company has to invest in its own communications backbone.

The group represents more than 30 small ISPs from across the country including Primus, TekSavvy, and Distributel.

In its May decision, the regulator capped the rates big wireless companies can charge smaller competitors for access to their networks because of concerns about competition.

Existing smaller carriers like Wind Mobile, which own their own infrastructure and towers, use the networks of the big companies when their customers roam outside their coverage area. Even the big carriers use domestic roaming in some areas where their networks don’t reach.

CNOC says those same concerns should have compelled the CRTC to take action to open up wireless networks to those who do not own towers or spectrum in order to operate as so-called mobile virtual network operators.

The group says the CRTC’s own analysis found that both domestic roaming and MVNO services are essential services controlled by the incumbents and therefore worthy of regulation, yet only roaming was addressed in the decision.

“Such radically different results stemming from nearly identical streams of analysis cannot be justified,” the group said in its filing.