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. In most areas of Canada, there are enough companies to ensure competition, innovation, and options for retail Internet services.

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 may charge their wholesale clients. 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

Disaggregated high-speed access service

*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.

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