FCA rejects appeal from big telecom

Federal Court of Appeal ruled to reject appeal of the 2019 CRTC decision - Sep 10, 2020

OAKVILLE - September 10, 2020: The Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) has ruled today to unanimously reject the appeal from Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Videotron and Cogeco in regards to the CRTC's 2019 decision to lower wholesale network access rates.

SkyChoice is pleased with the FCA's ruling as it provides greater cost certainty for smaller independent ISP's and will allow for lower cost Internet services to be offered soon.

The court had a unanimous 3-0 ruling as the appellants were not successful in convincing the three judges on any of the issues they raised in their appeal. In fact, the large carriers' appeal was dismissed with costs as many of the issues raised by Bell and the Cable Carriers in their appeal were of “dubious merit”.

"After Canadians have been paying some of the world's highest prices for Internet for so many years, we finally see light at the end of the tunnel for lower rates with this ruling." said Serge Cormier, CEO of SkyChoice. In fact according to a study performed by Picodi, Canada is among the top five most expensive countries when it comes to Internet.

However, lower rates from the CRTC's 2019 decision may not yet come into effect yet as the CRTC is also reviewing its own decision as part of the regulatory process and the federal government has indicated it could step in at some point if it thinks the arms-length regulator doesn't strike the right balance.


About SkyChoice Communications
Since 2013, SkyChoice has been offering innovative and value added television, home phone and high speed Internet services across Canada. In addition to DSL and Cable, SkyChoice also offers Internet service direct to the home or business via its own WiFibe wireless fiber network which continues to expand on a regular basis. For more information, please visit: www.skychoice.ca