Canada opts out of regulating wireless rates

Mobile Phone News, August 29, 1994

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently announced that providers of cellular and other wireless services need not receive its approval to change the rates they charge their customers.

"This is a first step in the recognition of full competitive services in Canada," said Leonard Katz, vice president of government and intercarrier relations for nationwide carrier Rogers Cantel Mobile Communications Inc., which holds the biggest share of Canada's cellular market.

In complying with a law approved last year by Parliament, the CRTC has removed itself from rate regulation for virtually all providers of such wireless services as cellular, paging, mobile radio and public cordless telephony--Canada's equivalent of personal communications services in the United States. ...Putting The Spur To A Fast-Growing Market

Citing a "sufficient" level of competition in all of these markets, the agency said it will continue to oversee the setting of rates only in the case of wireless services provided directly by the nation's telephone companies. Otherwise, wireless services "are sufficiently competitive not to warrant regulation," it said. However, the CRTC also said it is "prepared to forbear from exercising some of its regulatory powers" over mobile wireless services provided directly by the telephone companies if they can show evidence of "the establishment of sufficient costing and marketing safeguards."

Forbearance, Katz explained, means these companies will be subject to a "looser form of regulation." By contrast, paging and mobile radio are exempted from CRTC regulation. ...Larger Meaning

On its face, the CRTC's latest move is narrow in breadth, since it covers only three phone companies in largely rural provinces--Manitoba, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island--that have not formed cellular affiliates.

On a larger scale, however, the government's aim is to "promote the most efficient use of wireless services" in the fast-growing Canadian market, said John Gutpell, spokesman for BCE Mobile Communications Inc. in Montreal.

Cantel, based in North Oak, Ontario, competes nationally against Mobility Canada, a consortium formed by 14 cellular licensees. BCE Mobile, a BCE Inc. subsidiary and provider of cellular, radio and data services in the most heavily populated provinces of Ontario and Quebec, ranks as the largest of the affiliates and runs a strong second to Cantel in terms of market share. Rounding out the picture in Canada are some smaller independent firms, including a handful of municipality-run systems.