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Telus Corp. plans to continue expanding its fibre internet network within the core regions it serves even while acting as a wholesaler elsewhere in the country, its chief financial officer says.
A recent regulatory ruling aligns with the company’s belief that having a “mix of wholesale and retail customers” at the right access price is the best way to achieve a return on investment for the infrastructure, said Doug French.
“We build our networks for our customers and our customers include both wholesale and retail customers,” French said in an interview on Thursday after Telus reported its fourth-quarter earnings results.
“We believe that having customers on our network, whether it be through a retail channel or a wholesale channel, maximizes value of that fibre.”
Last week, Telus praised a CRTC ruling that allowed Canada’s largest telecoms to continue selling internet service in regions where they don’t own fibre networks, by paying the local incumbent to use their infrastructure.
However, the regulator deferred a final decision on the matter until the summer, saying it wanted to continue examining the effect of that rule on investment and competition.
Telus CEO Darren Entwistle said he expects the commission to uphold its previous ruling.
“I think that decision … is in the best interest, conclusively, of Canadian consumers and Canadian businesses, particularly small businesses,” he told analysts on a conference call.
Telus’s rival BCE Inc., the parent company of Bell Canada, criticized the CRTC for the preliminary decision, saying it “makes no sense” to allow incumbents to resell internet service from each other as the policy could discourage them from investing in their own infrastructure.
Noting that Bell is “not in the business of building fibre for Telus’s benefit,” Bell CEO Mirko Bibic announced last week that his company would further scale back the buildout of its fibre internet network because of the ruling.
But French said as long as the current model is maintained, Telus “will continue to build fibre in Canada.”
“We will continue to service areas that are economic, which we’ve announced in our footprints of our fibre build,” he said, highlighting ongoing buildouts in Alberta, B.C., and parts of Quebec.
Telus began offering fibre service throughout Ontario and Quebec in November under the wholesale regime, adding it planned to extend its offerings to the Atlantic provinces too.
“To be completely honest, we are not kidding ourselves that we’re not perfect and there’s certain customers that would select another vendor sometimes,” said French.
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