Summary

  • The CRTC asks telephone incumbents whether their fibre-to-the-node wholesale networks are becoming legacy services and whether their rates should be frozen.
  • It separately asks all parties about a low-cost up to 50 Mbps wholesale band, a specific 50 Mbps service and whether the requirement should cover cable as well as telephone companies.

Copper is walking toward the exit, and Canada’s telecom regulator wants to know whether its wholesale price should stay where it is. In a 22 October information request, the CRTC asks incumbent telephone companies whether declining use of fibre-to-the-node, or FTTN, makes that access service a legacy product. It then asks whether the wholesale FTTN rates ought to be frozen. The same letter turns to a different question: should every incumbent provide an up to 50 Mbps rate band and an actual 50 Mbps wholesale service so lower-cost retail offers remain possible?

Those are two boundaries in one proceeding. The first marks a retiring network: copper links in an FTTN service are being decommissioned as customers move to fibre-to-the-premises. A rate freeze could spare everyone another costly pricing exercise for a shrinking product. The second boundary marks a minimum wholesale offer. The CRTC asks whether a 50 Mbps rule should apply across telephone and cable companies, or whether their different network technologies justify different treatment. A cheap-sounding speed label without a corresponding service and workable wholesale rate would make a handsome sign over a locked gate.

The question is narrower than the June staff letter, which sought new Phase II cost studies from cable carriers and asked about a consolidated band up to 150 Mbps and freezing rates at 150 Mbps and below. The October request pulls the affordable entry point down to 50 Mbps and asks for a rate-setting method that supports competition and affordability while reducing administrative work. It also asks whether one frozen rate could cover all services within the proposed band.

In April, Telecom Order 2026-77 finalized a set of incumbent telephone-company wholesale FTTP rates and left cable rates and remaining FTTN work open. The October letter is the next piece of that unfinished rate file. Responses must reach the Commission by 5 November; replies are due 19 November. The CRTC has put a possible floor and a possible freeze on the table. The parties now have to show what each would do to the service customers can actually buy.

Sources