MARKHAM, Ontario, June 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission) revealed their decision on internet wholesale rates with an aggregated model on Thursday, May 27th, 2021. The CRTC reversed its own decision made earlier in 2019 to lower internet wholesale rates charged by major telecom, and decided to implement the old high rates dating back to 2016. These rates from 2016 were previously deemed to be unreasonable and unfair by CRTC itself. The decision is no doubt an unjust and unacceptable disaster that impacts all independent ISPs in Canada. Moreover, the decision is forcing Canadian consumers to pay an exorbitant rate to the major telecom giants. All ISPs actually lowered the retail prices from 2019, anticipating using those lower rates based on CRTC decision 2019-288.
The Canadian wireline wholesale regime is designed to force large telecom and cable companies to resell their network access to bring down the market prices using competition. However, after 5 years of hard work, the CRTC is still biased towards pressure from major telecommunication providers and ignores all investigation results that led to this decision. The major telecom providers have just been permitted to charge competition higher wholesale prices, which is not only at unfair competition rates but also causing an unhealthy telecom market for subsequent times. As prices are rising during the COIVD-19 pandemic, Canada is already one of few countries with the highest telecom costs in the world. The unexpected CRTC decision is going to make Canadian internet costs unprecedented and stubbornly high.
To meet consumers’ affordability regarding internet and telecom, CIK has been working hard to serve customers with economical prices and reliable services for the past 18 years. CIK has dropped their rates in the past 5 years significantly anticipating costs to decrease due to the pending decision of reduction of internet wholesale rates. CIK did not increase their prices at all to support their customers during the pandemic, even when the costs had dramatically increased since March 2020 due to a huge influx of internet usage in Canada. As businesses are struggling to survive during the pandemic, the CRTC’s unfair decision is assuredly adding fuel to the fire to give us and other businesses a really hard-time to maintain our business goals.
In our effort to provide better services to the customer, CIK concentrates its target on the investment of fibre networks, mobility, and wireless technologies. “Today we have to suspend most of our investments, especially the fibre network development in Markham with the original project of $300 million in investments that will be affected and delayed,” said Jordan Deng, CEO of CIK Telecom. “We are losing large amounts of anticipated refunds that we could have used for the facility of investment, but that is squashed due to the CRTC’s latest decision.”
CIK understands the CRTC's direction is to encourage ISPs to invest in the facility to bring robust competition and lower rates in the long term. However, CRTC's decision is kicking competition to exit the market and block smaller ISPs to invest in facilities and networks. What is even more unfair and unethical, large telecoms are selling at a lower retail prices than they are granted to charge wholesale rates to competition. Hence, CIK urges CRTC to correct the mistake of the final rates so that all Canadians can enjoy affordable lower rates from independent ISPS.
About CIK Telecom
Founded in 2003, CIK Telecom is a leading telecommunication company in Canada registered as a licensed carrier with the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission). CIK provides high-speed Cable and DSL Internet, Fibre Internet, Home Phone, Digital TV, Mobility and Home Security services. As of today, CIK has over 400 employees serving more than 250,000 customers in Canada.
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