Rogers Communications surprised its competitors in the telephone arena late last month when it called on the CRTC to ban the bundling of local phone connections with long-distance, cell and Internet services.

A 28-page petition filed with the federal regulator argues that Bell Canada and Telus have an unfair advantage in the phone and phone-related market, owing to their 99.6% hold on the country’s local residential business. The Toronto-based cabler bundles its TV and Internet services, sells mobile phones, and wants a cut of the local phone markets.

‘These monopoly bundles make it exceedingly difficult for any local phone competitor to win customers,’ says Rogers in the document. The company wants bundling banned until the industry is more competitive.

Only Telus currently bundles local connections with other services. Bell plans to offer a local bundle within the year.

Willie Grieve, VP of public policy and regulatory affairs at Telus, calls the move ‘bizarre’ and charges that Rogers is trying to ‘force feed’ its services to the local markets. Existing and recent restrictions on bundling already do enough to promote competition, he says.

Bell EVP Lawson Hunter says Rogers has exaggerated the dominance of the major telcos. Cell operators have made significant cuts into the urban residential and business markets, for example. ‘We’ve lost more wireless business in urban areas than cable has lost to satellite,’ he says.

Rogers defends the market share stats and its call for greater competition, citing similar arguments put forward by the CRTC and Industry Minister Allan Rock. Bell and Telus have until the end of July to file formal replies.

-www.rogers.com

-www.bce.ca

-www.telus.com