Canada’s cable companies are rubbing their hands with glee following the May 1 decision by the crtc to open up the country’s local telecommunications industry to competition.

The decision, which gives cable companies and other new entrants a head-start on convergence by allowing them immediate entry into the $8 billion a year residential and business local market, requires telephone companies to wait until next year to tap into the broadcasting business.

Either way, consumers are expected to be the winners as both cable and phone companies fight for customers with an array of pricing and service packages.

As with the deregulation of long distance four years ago, it is expected that attention will be focused, at least intially, on the more lucrative business market.

And contenders are already throwing their hats into the ring.

Calgary-based MetroNet Communications expects to be one of the first companies to enter the local services market, with a focus on business.

Long-distance provider Sprint Canada quickly announced plans to enter the market by the middle of next year, while Personal Communications Services (pcs) providers Clearnet Communications and Microcell Solutions, which are just rolling out their wireless systems, welcome the news as a way to position pcs as an alternative delivery system.

On the cable side, this month, vision.com, a group of cable industry players, begins a six-month test of telephone services carried over coaxial cable to 200 residents of Trois Rivieres, Que.

The test will examine cable’s ability to provide telephone as well as television and high-speed modem services.

Rogers Communications has already installed a telephone switch in Toronto and is expected to pursue the business phone market in the major urban areas that it serves in Ontario and British Columbia.