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Canada’s Capital Sides With Big Telecom In Fight for Affordable Fiber Access

A highly anticipated vote didn’t go as fiber proponents had hoped.
Image: Flickr/Alex indigo

Battle lines are being drawn in Canada over smaller telecom companies having access to the high-speed fiber infrastructure that the small handful of major players are planning to roll out soon. On Wednesday, in the nation's capital, city counselors voted to support big telecom over smaller competitors.

Canada's telecom landscape is dominated by three companies. Since these companies have the most money, it's often up to them to decide where to bankroll new infrastructure. Since the three companies are basically an oligopoly, in 2015 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) stepped in and ruled that these large companies must share new super-high-speed fiber internet with smaller competitors.

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Bell Canada filed an appeal in opposition to the ruling, and some Canadian mayors, including Ottawa's Jim Watson and Toronto's John Tory, sent letters in support of Bell Canada. On Wednesday, Ottawa city council struck down a motion to oppose its mayor and support the CRTC decision.

Proponents of the motion positioned support for the decision as a commitment to closing Ottawa's digital divide, ensuring that the poor and disadvantaged have affordable access to high-speed internet. The naysayers, however, held that support for the regulator's decision would be a blow against innovation and jobs.

"There's a company putting infrastructure in Ottawa, and we should encourage them, because these companies invest millions and millions of dollars in the economy and jobs," said counselor George Darouze, who spoke against the motion.

"We cannot continue to broaden this digital divide that exists in our community," said counselor Catherine McKenney, speaking for the motion. "Unless we're making these networks available to the smaller telecom providers, the lack of competition will mean internet will only get more expensive. For me, it is a quality of life issue."

If the motion were passed, and the municipal government of Canada's capital supported the regulator's decision, it would have been in direct opposition to Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, who expressed his support for not sharing new infrastructure in a letter last year.

But in the war for better internet access in Canada—a long, drawn-out, and ugly war at that—the defeat in Ottawa is just one battle.