Source: Government of Canada News

Gatineau, Quebec
April 1, 2025

Bram Abramson, Commissioner for Ontario
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)

Check against delivery

Thanks for the introduction and the warm welcome. It’s been great to spend these last couple of days with you here in Gatineau on unceded, unsurrendered Algonquin Anishnaabeg territory.

So let me start by thanking the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation for having me as a guest, and for stewarding these lands and waters since time immemorial. And, also, by thinking the Canadian Independent Telecommunications Association for asking me to address all of you in closing this year’s event, and adding myself to a long-running historical chain.

Until I began preparing for this speech I don’t think I realized how long that chain extends back. CITA was founded at Toronto City Hall in the year 1905. That’s 120 years ago. Canadian Confederation was 38 years old. Five years later, when Ontario would begin regulating independent telephone systems under what was then the Ontario Railway and Municipal Board in 1910, they turned to CITA to help them compile a list of those systems.

A hundred and fifteen years later, there’s still a regulator in the room, and we’re still asking you for information.

In all seriousness, though, CITA and its members have an incredible history. It is told in books like the History of the Independent Telephone Industry that the Ontario government put out back in 1975, and some of the company-specific histories I’ve had the good fortune to have come across my desk—like Ann Judd’s history of what is now Bruce Telecom, from 1994, or in the 2011 book put out to celebrate the centenary of Hay Communications.

Those books tell the stories of municipalities, agricultural communities, local commissioners, and entrepreneurs who stepped up to create communications systems where none existed. They undertook difficult negotiations and made difficult decisions, showing nimbleness and resolve while remaining accountable to their communities and neighbours.

Those histories are still being written and, I have no doubt, will continue to be written for many years to come. You fill a critical niche in Canada’s telecommunications system by bringing services to those who need it in locations that would otherwise lack it.

And you have been making moves. You have built beyond your initial operating territories into competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) areas, to the point that some of you are bumping against one another. You have pushed out fibre to complement and, in very many cases, replace the twisted-pair copper that was your basic operating technology for so many years. You have looked beyond wireline service to get into broadband and mobile. You have cooperated in new ways. Mergers and acquisitions have proceeded apace. New investors and new owners are in the room.

In short, the game has changed. And you continue to change with it, operating efficiently to fill gaps while navigating regulatory environments – often without the financial backing or capex of our country’s largest companies. When services go down or need repair, your customers call you and your coworkers. Unless they run into you at the grocery store or the local coffee shop first.

That makes groups like CITA and ITPA all the more important. Together, you provide a voice before bodies like the CRTC, and ensure Canada’s independent telecommunications providers continue to take your seat at the policy and regulatory tables.

We at the CRTC recognize this critical role industry associations play on behalf of their members, as well as the role that members play in our collective effort to ensure all Canadians have access to high-quality and reliable telecom choices.

CRTC’s telecommunications work broadly

To that end, I’d like to update you on what we’ve been up to and where we’re headed at the CRTC. It hasn’t exactly been 115 years on my side: in fact, I am two years and a couple of months into my five-year term at the CRTC. But you won’t be surprised to hear we continue to be busy, too.

Early in 2023, the government directed us to renew our approach to telecommunications policy. The policy direction asked us to consider how our decisions can promote competition, affordability, reliability, and consumer interests. The message to us was loud and clear: CRTC decisions need to deliver affordable telecommunications services to Canadians through enhanced competition while also promoting continued investment.

I would like to tell you about some of the workstreams we have active towards achieving those objectives.

MVNO framework

To start, I know that a number of you in this room have been hard at work upgrading and expanding and, in some cases, building out from scratch your wireless services. And I know that there is great interest in what we call our Mobile Virtual Network Operator, or MVNO, regime.

In May 2023, we set the final rules that allow regional facilities-based mobile providers to compete as what we call MVNOs across Canada. Incumbent mobile carriers must share their networks with competitors, where those competitors have spectrum. With this access, competitors that have spectrum can offer services — including retail and wholesale services — more quickly in the regions of the country where they have that spectrum. And, indeed, we are seeing more and more agreements in place to enable regional competitors to act as “MVNOs.”

One aspect of our decision clarified how the requirement to hold spectrum in a region, in order to make use of a mandatory MVNO tariff in that region, interacts with geographic spectrum footprints. This includes the footprint for the Local Telephone, or TEL, spectrum licences that small incumbent local exchange carriers (SILECs) have held for many years. We clarified that what we call our MVNO regime is all about accelerating the ability to offer service where the operator has spectrum coverage but hasn’t yet built infrastructure. So the eligibility that arises from a TEL licence only applies within the TEL licence footprint – whether that footprint is wholly contained within a single Tier 4 service area, or bridges two of them.

Now, both our May 2023 decision and the 2022 decision that preceded it were careful to ensure that MVNOs have the right to provide both retail, as well as wholesale, services. In other words, although the CRTC did not directly mandate MVNO access outside of a spectrum footprint, the marketplace will now feature a larger number of players with the ability to provide that access.

At the same time, telcos that make use of mandatory MVNO agreements within their spectrum footprints have seven years to do so. That provides a window within which to build out networks within these regions, promoting investment.

Support structures and access

Another important consideration in building out wireless networks is where to put the antennas, and how to get backhaul to them.

That brings me to another of our workstreams, which relates to pole access. As many of you know, we issued decisions in recent years streamlining the approach to accessing large incumbent local exchange carriers’ (ILEC) communication poles, and then nailing down the tariffs by which to do so.

At the same time, we have been exploring whether these tariffs ought to give attachers the right to include wireless attachments to help deploy next generation 5G networks — in other words, whether the rules requiring communication pole owners to let third parties attach equipment to poles should be modified and, potentially, broadened. What types of facilities could be deployed on telco poles to support wireless networks? What would that mean for spare capacity, construction standards, and interference? What can we do at the Commission to streamline processes?

These are just a few of the questions we are considering. Because this is a matter before us, I cannot even hint at any possible outcome. What I can say is we plan to release a decision on this key issue soon. Any decision we make will continue to promote both greater competition and more investment in networks.

At the same time, we have long been active working with all stakeholders, including municipalities, telcos, and citizens, to help facilitate access to other civil works and supports needed to build out modern networks. To assist in this process, we convened parties between 2011 and 2013 to develop a model Municipal Access Agreement. Since then we have continued to adjudicate disputes around those agreements and related issues, and continue to have open files in this workstream.

We likewise set down fair access rules for communications service provider competition in multi-dwelling units, or MDUs, more than 20 years ago in 2003, further refining them in 2021. End-users have the right to access the network of their choice. Competitors have the right to install it. Adjudication between buildings and networks that cannot agree on terms continues to be yet another active workstream for us.

HSA

Now, what I have been talking about so far are ways to lower the expense of continued build-out of your wireless and wireline networks by addressing and targeting some of the hurdles to aid the rollout of deployment projects.

And while those are important initiatives to speed up that process, we have also been hard at work putting into action the frameworks for access to large incumbents’ access fibre, outside of SILEC footprints.

Let me explain.

In 2023 we launched a proceeding to review our wholesale high-speed access regime. In November of that year, we rolled out a practical way to buy and sell wholesale high-speed access over the fibre-to-the-home networks of large ILECs in Ontario and Quebec, where competitive choice had been declining most significantly. In August 2024 we then expanded that access across all of the large ILEC territories except Northwestel’s, which rolled out this past February.

At the same time, we are encouraging continued investments by large ILECs in their networks. For example, in that same decision, we exempted any new builds from having to sell wholesale access to competitors until 2029.

Broadband Fund

Of course, no matter how hard we work to foster competitive choice the last few households often remain the hardest ones to reach – as you know from working in your own communities.

The open data we publish tell us that 21.5 percent of households in rural areas do not have access to reliable connectivity that hits our 50/10 target.

In 2016, we decided to overhaul our program for ensuring basic telephone service to all Canadians, and move towards a competitively neutral Broadband Fund. We established the criteria for that fund in 2018, and launched three calls for applications – the first two in 2019, and then the third in late 2022.

Over the past year we have continued to commit funding from the third call—to Inuit communities in northern Quebec, to nearly 100 kilometres of major roads in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Ontario, and to roads and rural communities in the Yukon, B.C., and Manitoba. We have directed funding to more than 270 communities, including significant investments in the Far North and other traditionally underserved areas, across more than 60 projects.

Thirty-two of these projects are in the $1 to $10 million range. Seventeen of these projects come in at $1 million or below. Although we are encouraged to see that smaller providers have been able to successfully apply for funding, we know that we can do more to make it easier.

That’s why, we have continued to improve how we administer the Broadband Fund itself. Late last year we announced a number of changes in three broad areas — making it faster for you to submit an application and for us to evaluate it; helping Indigenous applicants; and making our mapping make more sense.

In terms of faster application and evaluation, we simplified some eligibility and assessment criteria, like the requirement to propose specific packages and rates, and collapsed the separate access and transport categories in order to simplify things. We have reduced the amount of information required at all stages of the funding process. We’ve consolidated separate reporting requirements.

In terms of reducing barriers for Indigenous applicants, we have made a number of changes, including on consultation, consent, outreach, and engagement, all en route to a stand-alone process we’re running to create a distinct Indigenous stream to the Broadband Fund process, and with the help of the Indigenous Relations Team we’ve stood up within the CRTC.

Finally, in terms of making our mapping make more sense, we’ve dropped the hexagons for a call-by-call approach, expanded how we define major transportation roads, and provided a way to identify the roads that provide key linkages between communities.

These improvements are part of our ongoing review of the Broadband Fund. I know that many in this room are deeply concerned about subsidized overbuilds that harm the business case for fibre you have already built or are engaged in building.  I encourage you to continue to engage with the CRTC and its staff to ensure we continue to have a good understanding of your operations and your concerns. Any further changes we make will be focused on our overarching goal: to help close the remaining connectivity gaps across the country effectively and efficiently.

Fair marketplace

Next, I want to take a few moments to detail our work on consumer protections as part of a competitive marketplace.

Last fall, we published our Consumer Protections Action Plan, which summarizes our measures to ensure clear contracts, minimize bill shock, and promote transparency both in terms of how consumers are able to choose their provider, and in knowing what to expect from them.

For those of you that feel that sometimes consumers switch providers without having the full picture as to what they are signing up for, these measures matter. They include elements like the Internet Code that sets out the consumer rules of the road for broadband. And continued support for the CCTS, the complaints arbitrator that enforces the Internet Code and contract performance more broadly. And rules around cancellations taking effect in a timely manner, and that ensure that when consumers want to change providers they can ask their new provider to cancel the old service on their behalf—and that everything that needs to happen behind the scenes to make this happen proceeds properly. And then there’s the speed testing we conduct to check the quality of this customer service across the marketplace.

Rules like these protect more than just telecommunications customers. They also improve competition, ensuring consumers can make informed choices with a clear view of the prices they will pay over the life of the contract, even after sign-up specials expire; and what they will get for those prices.

Like the other workstreams I mentioned, there is always more to do here, too. We are currently engaged in a series of four consultations around making it easier to choose, change, and cancel a plan.

The first one is about clear rules for notifying customers when their plans or discounts are about to end. The second looks at fees that some service providers may charge when a subscriber cancels or changes a plan. The third consultation is around tools that providers give their subscribers to manage their plans, like online portals.

And the fourth is about whether service providers should have to provide information in a standardized way to make it easier for Canadians to compare plans. To take a well-known example — we are all used to seeing nutrition labels when we visit the grocery store. We are considering a set common look and feel for information on broadband services, so that it can be conveyed in a consistent manner from one provider to the next, just like the labels on your cereal boxes and granola bars.

We will also continue to build on the work of other government departments to help improve reliability and in particular, the impact on Canadians when there is an outage or disruption. As some of you are aware, we have an interim outage reporting framework in place. But we have also consulted on moving towards a more sustainable outage reporting framework are planning an upcoming consultation on clear communication with subscribers.

Please visit our website, and work with your trade associations and advisors, to stay up to date on these proceedings and on our progress with our consumer protection workstreams. As always, your input matters a great deal to what we do. When you intervene on the record of our proceedings, we’re able to take it into account and consider it in our final decision.

Security, reliability, and resiliency

One last thing. At the CRTC, we are part of a larger government effort to protect Canadians from spam and other electronic threats. We have all read the headlines over the last few years about botnets, which are networks of infected devices.

In 2022, we found that Canadians need better protections from botnets, which often are designed to steal personal and financial information, along with other malicious malware, and we decided to develop a framework for allowing Internet providers to responsibly block malicious traffic. We eventually tasked an industry steering committee to help develop standards consistent with our guiding principles for when such blocking is permitted: necessity, customer privacy, accountability, transparency and accuracy.

The working group filed its report with the CRTC. Our staff have been conducting a thorough analysis of the report and the comments filed in response to it. We will be publishing our decision this spring, so more to come on this front.

Late last year, everyone in our sector sat up straight and paid attention when public news stories about what Microsoft dubbed “Salt Typhoon” hacking into, and intercepting traffic on, the networks of several major U.S. telcos.

Virtually every regulated sector, from energy to rail to securities, has baseline cybersecurity requirements for sector companies. We know that this issue is top-of-mind for both government and the private sector. And I know that, in general, Canadian telcos are extensively involved in cybersecurity and in key working groups to cooperate on it.

We at the CRTC stand ready to do whatever part we’re called on to play to help ensure that the important goal of sector-wide baselines is achieved. At the same time, so many of the standards and certifications out there are so similar to one another. What standards are you able to meet, or certifications are you able to obtain, to help demonstrate and formalize your network hygiene? There are basic, practical steps telcos of all sizes can take to ensure they are fully secured.

Conclusion

I think that is a good place for me to wrap up today, as we have now come full circle. Everything I have discussed today comes back to the CRTC’s overarching goals for the telecommunications sector.

We want a telecommunications sector that works for telcos of all sizes, and provides all Canadians with high-speed, reliable and affordable services. One where real choice and robust competition leads to those lower prices, while at the same time encouraging investment in high-quality networks. Just as you steward your subscribers’ connections to the digital world, we at the CRTC are the stewards for the playing field on which you do it. And we are working hard to optimize the way that that playing field is structured.

So I’ll close with my usual message. Take a minute to get involved. To talk to us. To reach out to your regional CRTC Commissioner, wherever you may be in the country, to have your voice heard, and perhaps to have us out to see how your network works so that we can really understand what’s going on.

And, ultimately, to intervene in our proceedings, whether directly or through organizations like CITA or ITPA — or both — in order to continue to make sure that the rules and frameworks we develop and revise take your voices, experiences, situations, and concerns into account.

Thank you.

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