Mark Evans

Local Competition According to the ILECs

Any time you write about local competition in Canada, there is a tendency to cite the 95% or so of the market share controlled by incumbent carriers such as Bell or Telus. In an apples to apples world, this makes complete sense if you want to compare competition within the traditional wireline world. The wireline market continues to be focused on because most people still have wireline service despite all the talk about how young people are moving en masse to wireless phones. The flaw in this approach - according to the ILECs - is local competition also has to take into account wireless, e-mail, instant-messaging and Internet telephony. When all of these are considered, the ILECs contend their market share is closer to 80%. Of course, this math is powerful ammunition for the ILECs to turn around to the CRTC and plead their case that competition is alive and well. If this is the case, they argue, regulation the local market makes no sense. The efforts of the ILECs are gaining more urgency as the CRTC ponders over the future of Internet telephony. To regulate or not regulate that is the question. Given the CRTC appears to be leaning towards an environment of regulating the ILECs and letting the competitive carriers run free, you can see why Bell et al are driving hard on the “there is plenty of competition” mantra.