One of Canada’s big three telecoms is using a grassroots online petition in a bid to sway a looming decision by the CRTC that could jeopardize the Western company’s expansion into Ontario and Quebec.
The Telus petition on Change.org is asking Canadians to sign on to protect competition.
It was launched last November in the wake of a federal request to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to review whether the three largest service providers — Bell, Rogers and Telus — should be allowed to piggyback on each other’s fibre optic networks to sell high-speed internet and other services in different regions of the country.
In late 2023, the CRTC opened up fibre optic networks — no matter who built them — in Ontario and Quebec, regions where they said “competition had declined most significantly.”
The federal government’s request to review that CRTC ruling was made in November after Bell asked the Governor-in-Council to rescind, or alter, the CRTC decision.
“We believe you should have the choice to select who provides your internet,” the Telus petition reads. “It’s your choice on which brand gives you the best price and quality. The federal government is trying to limit competition, restricting the brands you can choose from. This includes preventing Telus from being able to expand our internet service across Canada.”
Zainul Mawji, executive vice-president and president of Telusconsumer solutions, said competition is necessary for a healthy industry, and one of the reasons for launching the petition.
Telus, which has built fibre optic networks in Alberta and British Columbia, but not Eastern Canada, began selling high-speed fibre optic internet in Ontario and Quebec in May, paying a wholesale price per customer to use a competitor’s network.
The CRTC decision will have major implications for the company in its bid to not only continue selling high-speed internet here, but other services such as streaming and home security on a high-speed fibre network.
In August of 2024, the CRTC released its final decision, broadening mandatory wholesale access to networks across Canada.
Bell said it wants the CRTC to prohibit Bell, Rogers and Telus from reselling fibre internet on each other’s networks to “protect consumer choice, ensure continued investment in broadband networks and increase broadband access, particularly for residents and small business owners in rural and Indigenous communities,” said Jacqueline Michelis, a Bell spokesperson.
The company announced a $1 billion reduction in investment after the CRTC’s interim decision was made.
“If the CRTC allows incumbents (Bell, Rogers and Telus) to resell fibre internet on each other’s networks, the economic factors will significantly change and we will therefore need to make further reductions, including ending our participation in government-subsidized projects,” said Michelis in an email to the Star.
When the government asked the CRTC for a review, it said it was concerned “about fostering the viability of small and regional internet service providers that provide alternatives and about maintaining investments in internet infrastructure, particularly in underserved areas including rural, remote and Indigenous communities,” according to an online statement from François-Philippe Champagne, the federal minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
The CRTC is expected to release its decision on Feb. 3.
Telus argues that it shouldn’t be considered a large service provider in Ontario and Quebec because it’s a new entrant in the market and its share is currently less than that of a smaller competitor like TekSavvy.
Paul Andersen, chair of the Competitive Network Operators of Canada which represents independent providers of network services, said that when the CRTC created mandatory wholesale access to fibre networks, it was to help smaller competitors that were “effectively locked out of fibre for many years.”
Andersen, who is president of an independent company in the industry, said if the big three have access to each other’s fibre networks, as well as wireless, “they will simply bundle that and just annihilate the smaller player who doesn’t have access to the wireless bundle.”
The petition by Telus had 180,570 signatures as of Wednesday with a goal to reach 200,000, at which point Mawji said the company will issue a public release to show the government “that this is an issue that Canadians are speaking out about in large quantities.”
Although the CRTC is trying to encourage competition, the regulator sets a wholesale rate that companies accessing fibre optic networks have to pay each month for every customer, as well as other costs. That rate, says Telus, is currently $76 a month, which means small companies can’t undercut the bigger providers who built the networks.
Mawji said her company intends to be competitive by bundling services.
“If you want to enter a market, you have to be innovative,” said Mawji. “You have to bring new bundles, new services, new options in terms of how you’re going to offer that service so that you can drive affordability … and that’s why it’s important that we are allowed to compete.”
