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The City of Hamilton applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for a ruling to force Bell to sign on to a new municipal access agreement, which sets out the telecom provider’s relationship with the city when it comes to rights-of-way, such as street crossings and roads.Glenn Lowson/The Globe and Mail

The City of Hamilton is turning to Canada's telecom regulator for help addressing what it says has been a long series of conflicts with Bell Canada over access to city roads and sidewalks.

The Ontario city applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for a ruling to force Bell to sign on to a new municipal access agreement, which sets out the telecom provider's relationship with the city when it comes to rights-of-way, such as street crossings and roads. Telecom providers often need access to these to install and maintain their infrastructure and deliver television, Internet and phone service to customers.

(Bell Canada is owned by BCE Inc., which also owns 15 per cent of The Globe and Mail.)

Hamilton's access agreement with Bell expired in 2012 and the city wants the new agreement to include performance standards and consequences for non-performance as well as authorization to charge the telecom company more for cost recovery.

"The city has now endured four years of chronic, persistent non-compliance and non-performance issues in respect to Bell's use of the city's rights of way," the city stated in an application made public this week.

The application focuses on the past four years, during which time it claims Bell has failed to adhere to city-approved locations and to provide timely answers to requests for information, installed infrastructure and cut into roads without permits, and allowed its contractors to enter city construction projects without authorization.

The city points to 69 examples of such behaviour and outlines 11 cases in detail that it claims represent a broader pattern of "Bell's consistent failure to either perform at an acceptable level or comply with the city's basic protocols and procedures."

Bell spokesman Mark Langton said Thursday that the company routinely negotiates access agreements with cities around the country, adding: "In Hamilton, however, the city is requesting unprecedented conditions that would add significantly to the cost of network building and maintenance.

"To support its claim, the city submitted to the CRTC a range of problems it alleges have been caused by Bell. Most are either long resolved and or simply erroneous," Mr. Langton continued. "We will look forward to correcting the record when we file our response in February."

The application claims that in one instance in 2009, shortly after the city laid new sidewalks in the area of Baron and Millen Streets, a Bell contractor entered the construction site without notice to the city and removed a portion of the new sidewalk. The contractor then filled the gap with uncompacted "cold patch," the black asphalt used to fill potholes, leaving the surface uneven and dangerous.

In a 2013 case, the city says it received numerous complaints from residents about Bell's work on McNab and Ferrie Streets. Although Bell said it had completed its work on the site, it left a large pit that had been dug and not filled and an impassable sidewalk, all of which had been the case for 12 weeks, the city claims.

Other examples include a cable left hanging at pedestrian height between a telephone pole and communications cabinet, a wire left duct taped across a public sidewalk and two communications cabinets installed in a location the city disapproved of.

"We have had a good relationship with many of our other utility providers," Michael Kirkopoulos, director of corporate communications for the City of Hamilton, said Thursday when asked whether the city has encountered similar problems with other telecom providers.

In the 1990s, the CRTC opened the markets to competition for long-distance telephone and Internet services, leading to increased activity by more telecom providers. After a series of conflicts between municipalities and telecom operators, the commission held a consultation and produced a model municipal access agreement in November, 2013, that was intended to address those disputes.

"These disputes aren't new. They have been going on for years," said Iain Grant, a telecom analyst with Seaboard Group, noting that while a current drive by telecom providers to upgrade to next-generation fibre often requires access to underground rights of way and sewers, disputes over telephone pole placement were also common in years past.

The City of Hamilton says it wants the current process to be open to input from a variety of interested parties through a full hearing before the commission. Bell has until Feb. 12 to file its response.

The city notes in its application that Hamilton is a fast-growing urban centre – it amalgamated with the surrounding towns of Ancaster and Dundas, the City of Stoney Creek, and the townships of Flamborough and Glanbrook in 2001 and the population was almost 520,000, according to the 2011 census.

However, as it develops, it is grappling with older, historical infrastructure that includes narrow streets and buildings that come right to the edge of streets. It wants this context to be considered in its dealings with telecom providers.

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