If the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decides their usage based billing (UBB) rules are the right move, Tony Clement, Canada's Industry Minister, won't waste any time in quickly overturning it.
After the CRTC announced in November that the country's incumbent service providers such as Bell Canada (NYSE: BCE) could implement a usage-based billing (UBB) plan for competitive service providers that purchase services from the incumbent carrier Canadian beginning this month, the agency decided to go and review its proposed rules.
"We asked the CRTC to review their decision, and if they come back with the same decision the cabinet would overrule it because it wouldn't be consistent with government policy ... promoting competition and choice," Clement said last Wednesday following a forum with University of Alberta students.
If the ruling does go into effect as planned, Bell Canada would be able to charge wholesale customers such as TekSavvy, which currently offer consumers unlimited data usage plans, the same usage-based caps they charge their own retail broadband customers. What this ultimately means is that consumers will have to adhere to a bandwidth usage limit every month.
For more:
- The Edmonton Journal has this article
Related articles:
Canada's UBB restrictions: A blow to competitors and consumers
Canada's CRTC requires incumbents to offer 15% discount to wholesale customers
CRTC allows Bell Canada to implement usage based on competitive ISPs
Canadian ISPs imposing data caps after CRTC wholesale ruling