CRTC Keeps Videotron’s Cheapest Internet Tiers Alive
Matthew Leo · Published August 30, 2026 · Canada Tech
The CRTC has rejected Videotron’s attempt to phase out four low-speed wholesale internet tiers, a small-looking regulatory decision with a fairly direct consequence: independent providers in Quebec can keep selling some of their cheapest connections.
Telecom Order CRTC 2026-212, issued August 20, covers aggregated wholesale tiers at 5/1 Mbps, 10/1.5 Mbps, 15/10 Mbps and 20/10 Mbps. Videotron argued that it no longer sells those speeds to new retail customers and should therefore be allowed to destandardize them for wholesale customers too.
The Commission said no. Its reasoning matters more than the speeds themselves.
The CRTC focused on affordability, not just network age
Competitors Bravo Telecom and ColbaNet argued that removing the tiers would force them toward more expensive wholesale options. The CRTC concluded that the change would disproportionately affect competitors and could ultimately hurt customers who deliberately choose low-cost, low-speed plans.
That is an important distinction. A 5 Mbps or 10 Mbps connection looks ancient beside a gigabit plan, but speed is not the only measure of usefulness. Low-bandwidth connections still serve payment terminals, sensors and households where keeping the monthly bill down matters more than streaming several 4K videos at once.
The Commission also noted evidence that Videotron still supports some lower-speed services in other contexts. The decision therefore treats the continued existence of those tiers as a competition and affordability question rather than a simple technology-upgrade question.
Two unused tiers are still disappearing
The ruling was not a blanket rejection. The CRTC approved Videotron’s request to withdraw two disaggregated tiers covering 0–5 Mbps and 6–10 Mbps because there were no customers using them.
That makes the order more pragmatic than it first appears. The regulator is not freezing every old service in place. It is preserving the aggregated tiers where competitors and end users still depend on them, while allowing genuinely unused products to disappear.
Why this matters outside Quebec
Wholesale internet policy determines how much room smaller ISPs have to compete with the companies that own the underlying networks. Canada has been pushing toward broader wholesale fibre access, and the CRTC finalized rates for that framework in April 2026.
This Videotron decision shows another side of the same policy: competition is not only about giving independent ISPs access to the fastest networks. It can also mean preserving lower-cost inputs when removing them would effectively push customers into a more expensive tier.
For consumers, there is no new discount to claim and no automatic change to an existing bill. The practical effect is that providers relying on these Videotron wholesale tiers do not have to abandon them because of this application.
Source: Telecom Order CRTC 2026-212.
Tags: CRTC, Videotron, internet, Canada telecom