I don't understand what happened. Why was the government able to set internet rates at all? Is there a monopoly here or not? Why weren't we (I'm Canadian) paying per usage before -- was it a law or did a flat rate grow from convienience?
The industry is regulated, I would guess, because (a) it has been (and might still be) heavily subsidized, (b) it's an essential service and maybe even because (c) there's an extremely high cost of entry for a new player, thus little competition.
edit I'm not suggesting they were doing what they are supposed to do, which I would describe as balancing what's right for consumers and what's right for the industry (not always the same thing). And I'm certainly not saying that, in this case, they made the right decision. I'm merely trying to describe the process, from my limited knowledge, with respect to the parent's question.
This was mostly about Bell's ability to bring UBB to bear on the 3rd party ISPs that are leasing their lines (and thereby forcing all of those ISPs' customers onto a usage-based-billing model). Thought if you read that full thread you'll see that there's was a bit of debate over exactly what part of the infrastructure most of the 3rd party ISPs are leasing from Bell.
I'm of the mind that so long as the ISPs aren't going over Bell's peering connections to the wider internet (meaning that they have their own), then Bell shouldn't be able to force usage-based billing onto those ISPs. If any of those ISPs want to use Bell's peering connections to the internet.... then I don't know.
Of note is that Bell is the only one allowed to lay new last-mile phone lines. So if a 3rd party ISP wants to hook-up customers with their DSL, they have to go over Bell's last-mile lines (to the DSLAM at least).
The issue here is not about the last mile. I'll say it until I'm downvoted to oblivion, but people keep restating this incorrect statement.
The decision being overturned is the one that allowed the big providers, who were leasing the last mile to independent ISPs (because the CRTC set regulations compelling them to do so), charge said independent providers by the gigabyte at the same rate as charged to customers. The regulation was later amended to give the independent providers a 15% mandatory discount - still a whopping markup of well over a thousand percent.
The big providers are still allowed to charge more or less whatever they want to customers, and will continue to do so.
The big telcos wanted the ability to enforce the same rules they put on their own clients onto the wholesalers, which meant restrictive caps and lower speed packages. That would have effectively pinched off what little competition there was already...