Northwestel Inc. received a rough ride Wednesday afternoon at a regulatory authority’s public hearings into the company’s service.

It was described as a monopoly which continues to thwart efforts to allow more competition, despite being ordered to do so by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

Northwestel is putting up a false front, pretending to go along with direction received from the CRTC, commission chair Jean-Pierre Blais and his four fellow commissioners were told repeatedly.

In reality, the commissioners heard, Northwestel is making the competition jump through a tangle of hoops, which substantially weakens the business case for new service options in the North.

Jeff Philipp founded SSI, a communications company launched in the Northwest Territories.

He reminded the commission how SSI was forced to seek the CRTC’s
assistance in forcing Northwestel to provide access to its system at a reasonable cost.

Northwestel is now appealing the CRTC’s order, in what he suggested was regulatory gamesmanship by Northwestel to further aggravate competition.

“Ultimately, this process is about more than just how to regulate Northwestel,” Philipp said.

“The outcome of these hearings could, quite literally, determine the future of our smallest communities and the opportunities available to the people living in them.”

The quality of telecommunications in the North is tied directly to the quality of life in the North, whether it’s in the context delivering health or building economy, the commission heard over and over again.

The hearings into Northwestel’s service opened Monday for a day in Inuvik and continued Wednesday and today at the High Country Inn.

Altogether, 22 parties provided submissions, and were scheduled to make response arguments today.

The Yukon and Whitehorse chambers of commerce made presentations, as did the territorial government and the Yukon’s Utility Consumers’ Group.

Submissions were made by several private sector companies. Most had a bone to pick with Northwestel and what they described as the company’s unwillingness to accept new competition.

On the other hand, the CRTC was cautioned by Champagne-Aishihik’s Dakwakada Development Corp. and Northwestel’s business partner about being careful not to push Northwestel to far into the open.

Northwestel and Latitude Wireless have and continue to do the grunt work in providing modern communication services across the North, Greg Fekete, chair of the development corporation, told the commissioners.

He said forcing Northwestel to provide a warm and fuzzy cushion for the competition to work from could see the competition skimming the cream in the larger communities while leaving Northwestel to soldier on with the scraps.

Northwestel, said Fekete, has been a good corporate citizen. Together with Latitude Wireless, it has brought new technology to small communities where competition would not likely tread.

Others told the commission Northwestel has been anything but a good corporate citizen, and is more of a chameleon using corporate tactics to freeze out new blood.

Iristel and Ice Wireless president Samer Bishay said the hearings basically boiled down to two words: fairness and choice.

Residents of northern Canada, he said in his presentation Wednesday afternoon, deserve the same services as other Canadians, at a reasonable price.

Bishay said in fairness to Northwestel, the company “is struggling to shed its monopoly garb just like other incumbents in North America some 20 years ago.

“Like those former monopolies – including its parent Bell Canada – Northwestel can thrive in a competitive environment,” he told the commissioners. “It just needs to free itself from its monopoly mindset.”

The commissioners heard how Northwestel will sell space on its main communications trunk to the south, but only to High Level, Alta., and not all the way to the communications hub in Edmonton.

That leaves potential competitors having to provide their own link to the provincial capital, forcing them to figure out all by themselves how to tie into a confusing Northwestel network, which is old and outdated.

Northwestel, the commissioners heard, will not sell empty telephone lines to competitors wanting to move into the communities.

Rather, the company will only sell space which already comes with a dial-tone, preventing competitors from providing their own complete package.

And if customers in communities want to buy Internet service from Northwestel, they must buy the company’s phone service too. That leaves no incentive for customers to shop around for other Internet providers, it was said.

The commission heard Northwestel has built a network in the North using millions upon millions in federal subsidies received to offset the cost of doing business in the North.

It continues to receive those subsidies, and profits provided to its parent company are higher than they’ve ever been. Yet, Northwestel is refusing to welcome new competition, as it was told to do by the CRTC, it was said.

Furthermore, the commissioners heard, Northwestel continues to try to wiggle out of the 2011 CRTC order to provide reasonable access to its system – built with the aid of public subsidies.

Its latest ploy was filing for a review of and variance of the CRTC decision last February to sell space on its system for a certain price, the commissioners heard.

Northwestel, they were told, has cancelled plans to lay fibre optic cable from Stewart Crossing to Dawson City, saying it can’t afford the project if it has to sell competitors space at the price set by the CRTC.

Jean-Francois Leger of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and Consumers Association of Canada told the commission when Northwestel unveiled its five-year modernization plan a year ago, things looked good, even promising.

It was a commitment by the company to provide the same level of service available in the South to residents of the North, Leger said.

“The picture since July 2012, however, has substantially deteriorated,” Leger said in his remarks.

“… We will not go through all of the changes the company has made but we can safely summarize the changes as a steady whittling-down of the company’s proposal.

“The overall result is that for residents and businesses in smaller communities, the objective the commission set for the company, of ensuring that northern customers receive regulated as well as forborne service comparable to those available in southern Canada remains just a dream,” Leger said.