Canada’s incumbent telephone and cable operators must allow smaller ISPs to piggy-back on their fiber-optic broadband networks, but can charge these rivals a 10% mark-up for doing so, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled today.

“Requiring these companies to provide access to their networks will lead to more opportunities for competition in retail Internet services and better serve consumers,” explained CRTC Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein, in a written decision.

The 10% mark-up is intended to provide big carriers with an incentive to continue expanding their networks, a capital-intensive activity which consumes much of their profit. But Bell Canada’s senior vice president for regulatory and government affairs, Mirko Bibic, doubts that it will be enough to sustain innovation.

“If you are going to invest a billion (dollars) plus … you have to make sure that investment generates sufficient returns to make it worthwhile,” Bibic explained. “I suspect the 10 percent will not make it much more worthwhile.”