Telecom Order CRTC 2025-115

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Gatineau, 21 May 2025

Public record: Tariff Notice 7710

Bell Canada – Tariff Notice 7710 – Service Provided in Out-of-Footprint Territory

Summary

Canadians need access to reliable, affordable, and high-quality telecommunications services for every part of their daily lives.

In this order, the Commission ensures that Bell Canada’s customers will have access to local voice services offered over fibre technology in Cap-aux-Meules and Mont-Laurier, Quebec.

The Commission approves on a final basis Bell Canada’s tariff application to reflect its offering of regulated local exchange services outside of its incumbent territory but within the territory of its affiliate, Télébec, Société en commandite to include two new exchanges: Cap-aux-Meules and Mont-Laurier, Quebec.

Application

1. On 3 February 2025, the Commission received an application from Bell Canada, Tariff Notice 7710. The company proposed amendments to its General Tariff intended to reflect its offering of regulated local exchange services outside of its incumbent territory using its expanded fibre network. Specifically, the company proposed changes to item 12, Service Provided in Out-of-Footprint Territory.
2. Bell Canada proposed updating the list of exchanges that Bell Canada serves in Télébec, Société en commandite (Télébec) territory in order to include two new exchanges: Cap-aux-Meules and Mont-Laurier, Quebec.
3. Bell Canada noted that, in Telecom Order 2024-74, the Commission found that it would be appropriate for the company to file tariffs for services it offers outside of its own territory but within the territory of its affiliate, Télébec, where such services would be regulated for it.
4. Bell Canada requested an effective date of 18 February 2025.
5. The Commission received no comments with regard to the application.

Commission’s analysis

6. The Commission notes that Bell Canada is in the process of deploying fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services in the territories of several affiliated carriers, including Télébec. In Telecom Order 2024-74, the Commission denied an application from Télébec to introduce tariff provisions related to the provision of FTTH services because they would be provided by Bell Canada, not Télébec. In that order, the Commission stated that it would be appropriate for such offerings to be reflected in Bell Canada’s tariff.
7. In Telecom Order 2024-214, the Commission approved on a final basis, by majority, Bell Canada’s tariff application to reflect the introduction of local voice services outside of its incumbent territory but within the territory of its affiliate Télébec.
8. In compliance with Telecom Order 2024-214, Bell Canada’s tariff changes propose to update the list of exchanges where they serve in Télébec’s territory to add two new exchanges: Cap-aux-Meules and Mont-Laurier, Quebec.
9. Commission approval will enable Bell Canada to provide residential local exchange services over its fibre network in those two new exchanges.
10. The Commission considers that Bell Canada’s proposed tariff changes comply with the Commission’s previous determinations and are appropriate.
11. The Commission considers that approval of this application would advance the policy objective set out in paragraph 7(h) of the Telecommunications Act.^{Footnote 1}

Conclusion

12. In light of all of the above, the Commission approves, by majority decision, Bell Canada’s application on a final basis.
13. Revised tariff pages are to be issued within 10 calendar days of the date of this order. Revised tariff pages can be submitted to the Commission without a description page or a request for approval; a tariff application is not required.
14. The dissenting opinion of Commissioner Bram Abramson is attached.

Secretary General

Related documents

• Bell Canada – Tariff Notice 7692 – Introduction of Service Provided in Out-of-Footprint Territory, Telecom Order CRTC 2024-214, 20 September 2024
• Télébec, Société en commandite – Introduction of Fibre to the Home and Business, Telecom Order CRTC 2024-74, 8 April 2024

Dissenting opinion of Commissioner Bram Abramson

1. Bell Canada operates, in its home exchanges, as an incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC), with attendant responsibilities. So do its divisions Bell Aliant, DMTS (in Dryden), KMTS (in Kenora), and Ontera. The same is true for Bell MTS Inc., Northwestel Inc., and Télébec, Société en commandite (Télébec), as it is for Groupe Maskatel LP and its Téléphone Saint-Éphrem and Téléphone de Saint-Victor brands.
2. All of these ILECs operate under separate sets of tariffs. Yet all of them are affiliated undertakings, operating under common control and under the ultimate beneficial ownership of BCE Inc. A non-negligible portion of the Commission’s tariff work involves reviewing—and, of late, destandardizing or withdrawing—tariffs for similar items offered by each of these entities.
3. Sometimes this work grapples with more novel issues raised by the simultaneous operation of so many ILECs under common control. For instance, Bell Canada is building fibre-to-the-premises facilities over which to offer local exchange services, among others, within the ILEC territory of its affiliate Télébec. Bell Canada has the status of a competitive local exchange carrier in Télébec’s incumbent territory. Télébec, in turn, has ILEC responsibilities there. Which local exchange carrier, in those circumstances, ought to be responsible for what?
4. The decision adopted by the majority of the Telecommunications Committee, on behalf of the Commission,^{Footnote 1} chronicles some of the regulatory history involved in sorting out that question—surely the Telecommunications Act’s own rejoinder to the followers of Thomas Aquinas, reputedly keen to count dancing angels, or to more modern memeists entranced by identical Spidermans pointing at one other with equal parts confusion and glee. In short: Telecom Decision 2024-74 called on Bell Canada to be the offering party, and Telecom Order 2024-214 approved the tariff by which it will do so.
5. I dissented on the latter Order on the basis that, amid all of this angel-pinning and Spider-pointing, something was being missed. Where our regulatory framework allows, for better or for worse, for inefficient and duplicative structures, corporate groups are certainly entitled to take advantage of them, whether to capture tax planning benefits, preserve future options, avoid internal administrative costs that would outweigh resulting internal efficiencies, and so on. But we have a responsibility to ensure that these inefficiencies do not become opportunities for regulatory arbitrage. Our frameworks must resist being contorted into exercises in head-of-a-pin precision – nor, as a diasporic Babylonian academy was once teased, into attempts to push an elephant through the eye of a needle.
6. The majority’s decision carries forward its decision on Telecom Order 2024-214 by adding further Télébec exchanges to the “out-of-footprint” territories first mapped in that Order. I likewise carry forward my dissenting opinion on that Order for the reasons set out here, and there.

Date modified:

2025-05-21