Fostering competition in the Internet services market
What we do
We set wholesale rates to facilitate greater competition between Internet service providers and to promote innovative broadband services and affordable prices.
Canadians can choose to buy Internet services from independent service providers, large cable or telephone companies, and other Internet service providers available in their community.
We don’t regulate retail Internet service prices, except in Northwestel’s operating territory.
When we determined that there was limited competition for certain residential and business Internet services in Canada’s North, we decided to regulate, on an exceptional basis, Northwestel’s rates for these services.
Regulating wholesale high-speed services
To foster greater competition, we require that large companies sell access to their networks under specific rates, terms and conditions.
Service providers use this access, with their networks, to offer Internet and other services to their retail customers. These Internet service providers are wholesale customers of large cable and telephone companies.
We set the rates that telephone and cable companies charge their wholesale clients (i.e., competing service providers). The rates are based on the costs that the large cable and telephone companies incur to provide the wholesale service and include a reasonable markup.
Types of wholesale high-speed services
There are two types of wholesale broadband services available to competitors, which they can use to access large companies’ high-speed networks: the aggregated service and the disaggregated service.
Aggregated high-speed access service
- Available across Canada.
- Provides access to fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH)*.
- Competitors connect their network to a smaller number of points in the large companies’ networks.
- Competitors have to rely almost entirely on the large companies’ networks.
- Generally higher costs to transport large amounts of traffic over the large companies’ networks.
Disaggregated high-speed access service
- Currently available in Ontario and Quebec.
- Provides access to both FTTN and FTTH (which allows competitors to provide higher speeds to their customers).
- Competitors connect to many points in the large companies’ networks.
- Competitors have more flexibility in how they access the large companies’ networks, and therefore more control over the services they offer.
- Competitors can choose how they want to transport traffic (lease facilities from large companies, purchase their own facilities, etc.).
*For FTTN, a telephone company connects to an end customer through fibre and copper facilities, and a cable company connects through both fibre and coaxial facilities. For FTTH, fibre is extended all the way to the end customer.
Related links
- CRTC takes action to bring Canadians more choice and lower prices for high-speed Internet
- Review of Internet competition
- CRTC sets final wholesale rates for broadband services
- Wholesale broadband services
- Internet – Our role
- Review of Northwestel and telecom services in the North
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