Telecom - Staff Letter addressed to Toby Harper-Merrett (Cogeco Communications)
17 October 2023
Our reference: 8740-C6-202301836
VIA EMAIL
Toby Harper-Merrett
Senior Advisor, Regulatory Affairs
Cogeco Communications
1 Place Ville Marie, bureau 3301
Montréal (Québec) H3B 3N2
telecom.regulatory@cogeco.com
Subject: Cogeco Tariff Notice No. 65A – TPIA Tariff CRTC 26400 – Upload speed increase
Toby Harper-Merrett:
On 8 September 2023, the Commission received an application from Cogeco Communications Inc., on behalf of its subsidiary Cogeco Connexion Inc. (“Cogeco”), under Tariff Notice (TN) 65A proposing revisions to the company’s TPIA Tariff (Tariff CRTC 26400).
In its application, Cogeco submitted that the company has started increasing the upload speed of its 360 Mbps and 1 Gbps downstream high-speed retail Internet services from 30 Mbps to 100 Mbps, and that this increase will be progressively rolled out throughout Cogeco’s serving territory in Ontario and Québec.
The company also submitted that pursuant to previous Commission determinations, Cogeco will be making available on a wholesale basis these increased upload speeds over DOCSIS-HFC and DOCSIS-RFoG/FTTH through aggregated and disaggregated Points of Interconnection (“POIs”) in Cogeco’s serving areas where an equivalent upload speed is offered on a retail basis. Cogeco also submitted that the increased upload speeds are currently available at some nodes in Cogeco’s serving areas.
Commission staff notes that in its initial TN 65 application,Footnote1 Cogeco reduced its aggregated TPIA service monthly capacity rate (per downstream capacity increments of 100 Mbps) by 10% as per Commission directive in Telecom Notice of Consultation CRTC 2023-56.Footnote2 However, in this tariff application (TN 65A), the company is proposing to increase the upload speed for some of its high-speed Internet services from 30 Mbps to 100 Mbps. Commission staff considers the above two applications are not related and that it would be more appropriate for Cogeco to refile its TN 65A application as a separate application under a new TN Number.
Commission staff also notes that Cogeco’s TN 65A application as submitted does not conform to the Commission directives on filing a tariff application as specified in CRTC Bulletin 2010-455-1,Footnote3 especially under the heading ‘Form and content of tariff applications’. Should Cogeco refile its proposal under TN 65A as a new TN application, the company should modify its application to meet the above directives in that Bulletin, specifically in regards to paragraph 27, “Applicants are to file both the existing and proposed new or revised tariff pages”.
Commission staff further considers the proposed services are not new services, but merely changes to existing services – as only upstream speeds are changed. Thus, such changes to the upload speeds in the proposed tariff pages, associated with both aggregated and disaggregated TPIA services, should be identified as “C” instead of as “N” as done now.
Further, since Cogeco, in its TN 65A application, has not provided a timeframe when the conversion of upload speeds from 30 Mbps to 100 Mbps will be complete, Commission staff is of the view that there will be a period when both 30 Mbps and 100 Mbps upload service speeds will be in service simultaneously at different locations at a given point of time. Thus, the upload speeds of the proposed services should be shown as “30 – 100 Mbps upload” instead of simply “100 Mbps upload” as proposed in TN 65A.
In light of the above, the tariff application filed under Cogeco TN 65A will now be closed.
Sincerely,
Original signed by
Chris Noonan
Director, Competitor Services & Costing Implementation
Telecommunications Sector
c.c: Trichur Krishnan, CRTC, 819-953-9584, trichur.krishnan@crtc.gc.ca
- Date modified: