This article from Engadget talks mostly about how broadband and telecommunications in Europe differs from what is in the States, but by extension, it does reflect what is happening in Canada. Although Rogers and Bell (R&B) are 'forced' to share their lines with resellers, the reality is that whenever their resellers have issues that are caused by R&B, they drag their feet to fix the issues and/or impose additional fees to even have these issues fixed (see dslreports.com). The end result is that R&B have successfully made their resellers look like a bad choice, thereby killing off competition.
Looks like the British government's top regulator, Peter Black, knew just the thing to do when British Telecom dragged their feet : Publicise their incompetence and embarrass them.
The market in the UK used to be much like ours here in the U.S.: British homes had two options for broadband service: the incumbent telephone company British Telecom (BT), or a cable provider. Prices were high, service was slow, and, as I mentioned above, Britain was falling behind its European neighbors in international rankings of broadband service.
The solution, the British government decided, was more competition: If consumers had more options when it came to broadband service, regulators reasoned, prices would fall and speeds would increase. A duopoly of telephone and cable service wasn't enough. "You need to find the third lever," says Peter Black, who was the UK government's top broadband regulator from 2004 to 2008.
Starting around 2000, the government required BT to allow other broadband providers to use its lines to deliver service. That's known as "local loop unbundling" -- other providers could lease the loops of copper that runs from the telephone company office to homes and back and set up their own servers and routers in BT facilities.
BT dragged its feet and very few firms stepped up to compete with the telephone giant. "The prices were too high," Black says. "There were huge barriers to entry. The processes were long and drawn out."
When Black was named Telecommunications Adjudicator in 2004, he fought on two fronts to break the BT logjam. First, he used his own experience as a former employee of the telecom giant to push for change from the inside. When that wasn't enough, he used the bully pulpit provided by his government post to embarrass BT in public. He publicized the company's failure to meet goals. Reporters loved the story of the government regulator holding the giant firm's feet to the fire.
"Embarrassment works, you know?" he laughs.
