The Financial Post reports in its Wednesday edition that BCE plans to chop capital spending by $1-billion after a regulator ordered the country's major phone providers to open their broadband networks to smaller rivals at prescribed rates. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says that the decision by the CRTC applies to Ontario and Quebec, the two provinces where more than 60 per cent of the population lives, and is intended to bring more competition to home Internet services and reduce costs for consumers. CRTC boss Vicky Eatrides said the ruling was a response to years of declining competition from independent Internet sellers, many of which have been acquired by the big telcos. The regulator will set interim rates at which BCE and other large phone companies must sell wholesale access to their high-speed "fibre to the home" networks, and will hold more public hearings on the issue starting in February, Ms. Eatrides said in a speech Monday. For BCE, the ruling is set to curb growth in one its most important lines of business. "A legal challenge from BCE would not surprise us," BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Casey said in a note, while downplaying the negatives of the CRTC's move to BCE's overall performance.