Nathan Simington is a former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. He was born and raised in Saskatchewan.
The federal government faces a simple question: Should Canada support a diverse, competitive internet ecosystem, including regional internet service providers, or ISPs, that invest where incumbents decline to build?
If the answer is yes, Ottawa must act before Aug. 13 to reverse a recent Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission policy.
No healthy competition policy anywhere supports regulatory remedies for large, dominant incumbents – not in the United States, where I served on the FCC, not in Europe, and not in Canada. This country’s independent and regional ISPs face a serious threat: not from market forces, but from the unintended consequences of regulation.
A recent CRTC decision mandating wholesale access to existing broadband networks risks undermining competition. It lets Canada’s Big Three national incumbents – Rogers, Bell and Telus – access each other’s networks, as well as those built by smaller regional ISPs often in areas the major carriers chose not to serve. As a Canadian from rural Saskatchewan, I have a personal understanding of how important it is to connect those underserved areas.
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Wholesale access was meant to let smaller firms use incumbent infrastructure. It was never meant to let Canada’s Big Three piggyback on the existing infrastructure of others, especially the hard-won investments of smaller, more localized competitors.
In response, Eastlink, Cogeco, SaskTel and the Competitive Network Operators of Canada, or CNOC, filed a petition asking the federal cabinet to rescind or vary the policy. If granted, the petition would prohibit the Big Three from leveraging regulation to get even bigger. Granting the petition would restore the confidence and clarity smaller providers need to keep building, ensuring more competition and affordable services for Canadian consumers.
If cabinet does not act, the outcome is predictable. Regional ISPs will be unable to compete against the bundles and scale of the dominant national incumbents, and will be unable to invest in competitive connectivity while sharing their networks with the Big Three firms that already control 87 percent of the market.
For the Big Three, it is a no-risk financial option; for the rest, it is a growing disincentive to invest. This will make the Canadian market less competitive, less entrepreneurial and less incentivized to build.
Canada also risks becoming a negative international outlier by drifting into a model that, unlike any regime I encountered in comparative regulatory work, fuses incumbent privilege with disincentives to build. This regime would chill network construction and impose significant barriers for new competitors.
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Allowing the Big Three to access wholesale services, even outside their home territories, gives them the ability to bundle wireless, video and internet into one offering. This lets them undercut regional rivals and exploit scale advantages. In the short term, this may look good for consumers. In the long term, it drives consolidation and harms the very small ISPs most likely to serve rural, Indigenous and remote areas.
What’s more, the Big Three already enjoy significant potential access through fixed wireless. In the United States, all net broadband subscriber growth since 2022 has come from 5G fixed wireless from major carriers at the expense of cable. In Canada, the Big Three have all the tools they need to reach consumers today, with no need for further support in wholesale access.
If Ottawa fails to act, the stakes are clear. Canada can have open access or fair access, but not both under this policy. A balanced regulatory regime should reward those who build and enable meaningful competition. Dominant providers don’t get regulatory relief in any reasonable competition policy. The most recent CRTC decision breaks that balance.
Cabinet has both the authority and the precedent to fix it. The petition filed by Eastlink, Cogeco, SaskTel, and CNOC is grounded in the public record, aligns with cabinet’s prior directives, and serves the broader national interest.
Canadians deserve more than three options for internet service. They deserve real competition, durable investment and infrastructure that reaches everyone. Broadband policy should be about improving and extending connectivity – enabling the competitive, entrepreneurial investment that makes it possible. Cabinet must act to protect that future.