CNOC asks CRTC to fix wholesale fibre rate decision

The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) today filed an application asking the CRTC to review and vary Telecom Order CRTC 2026-77, the decision that set final rates for wholesale fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) access. CNOC’s evidence shows the rates are fundamentally broken: Canada’s dominant carriers are selling fibre Internet to consumers at or below the very wholesale costs the CRTC says competitors must pay.

The math is stark. In Toronto, Bell’s flanker brand EBOX sells 150 Mbps fibre for $50/month — while an independent competitor pays $103.56 in regulated wholesale costs just to deliver the same plan. In Ottawa, TELUS is offering 1.5 Gbps fibre at $80/month with a five-year price guarantee, barely above what an independent pays in wholesale inputs alone. The same pattern holds in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Atlantic Canada.

This means one of two things: either the regulated wholesale rates dramatically overstate incumbents’ actual costs, or the incumbents are pricing below cost to drive competitors out. Either way, the Order is wrong and must be corrected.

The filing comes three years after the Governor in Council directed the CRTC to encourage competition, foster affordability, remove barriers to entry, and actively monitor and proactively adjust its framework. Instead, the Commission finalized rates it acknowledges are similar to those it established two years ago — without ever benchmarking wholesale costs against the retail prices incumbents actually charge. That failure, CNOC submits, is an error of both fact and law, and a breach of the Commission’s binding statutory duty under the 2023 Policy Direction.

CNOC is asking the Commission to:

• require incumbents to report actual retail pricing — including flanker brands, white-label deals and off-market promotions — as part of its market monitoring;
• include CNOC members in its data gathering, which to date has gone only to the incumbents;
• declare the 2026-77 rates interim until rates are properly benchmarked against real retail prices; and
• implement retail pricing safeguards to stop below-cost pricing while the review proceeds.

“When the incumbent’s retail price is lower than what we’re forced to pay them at wholesale just to compete, that’s not a market — that’s an error in the design of the regulatory framework. The CRTC was ordered to eradicate barriers to entry and competition for smaller independent providers. Instead its framework is threatening to eradicate them.” — Paul Andersen, President and Chair, CNOC

Without correction, CNOC warns, Canada is on a path to the re-monopolization of fixed Internet service — higher prices, fewer choices, and the end of independent competition on fibre, or worse.

CNOC’s regional price comparison tool is available at cnoc.ca.

PDF Read CNOC’s application to the CRTCPart 1 · Review & vary of Telecom Order CRTC 2026-77 · 16 pp

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