Shaw-WIND Deal Means More of the Same High Prices for Wireless

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                        December 17, 2015
 
OTTAWA – Canadian consumers will lose the possibility of a “maverick” national wireless carrier if the proposed acquisition of WIND Mobile Corp. (WIND) by Shaw Communications Inc. (Shaw) is allowed to proceed, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Consumers’ Association of Canada (CAC) said today. WIND is the last remaining “new entrant” wireless company and was expected to adopt an aggressive strategy of national pricing after securing financing to build a state-of-the-art 4G (LTE) network this year.
“Losing WIND to Shaw means consumers will pay more for wireless, not less, because Shaw will join the other three big players in trying to sell their broadcasting content over wireless in increasingly expensive packages.,” said John Lawford, Executive Director and General Counsel for PIAC. “Consumers will lose the chance for lower prices from all wireless carriers when the pricing pressure from this potential maverick is gone.”
The deal announced yesterday by Shaw and WIND is subject to approval by the Department of Industry, Science and Economic Development and the Competition Bureau. PIAC and CAC intend to ask ISED Minister Bains and the Competition Bureau to block the deal or otherwise impose conditions which protect WIND customers and prevent a substantial lessening of competition.
“It’s déjà-vu all over again. First Clearnet, then FIDO and now WIND – every company promising true competition in wireless is bought by large companies that fail to deliver on the promise of competition, choice and lower prices for Canadians,” said Bruce Cran, President of the Consumers’ Association of Canada.  “We have to stop repeating the mistakes of the past to deliver customers the wireless promise of the future.”
 
For more information:
 
John Lawford
Executive Director and General Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
ONE Nicholas Street, Suite 1204
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7B7
(613) 562-4002 x25
613-447-8125 (cell)
lawford@piac.ca
 
Bruce Cran
President
Consumers’ Association of Canada
(604) 943-9181
bcranbiz@telus.net
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Option consommateurs needs your help

Dissatisfied with services rendered by your electricity or natural gas provider?

If you already filed a complaint regarding this issue, Option consommateurs wants to hear from you!
Option consommateurs wants to get in touch with people that in the last year:

• filed a complaint regarding an issue with their energy provider (electricity or natural gas);

or

• Initiated a dispute settlement process with a regulatory body in the energy sector.

Option consommateurs wishes to talk with theses consumers about their experiences with the complaint mechanism they have used.
Participants must be available for a telephone interview of approximately 30 minutes and accept a follow up, within six months.
For their participation, they will receive $50.00.
The information collected will only be used as part of a research which is financed by Industry Canada’s Office of consumer affairs. The identity of the participants will not be disclosed.
For more information, please contact Karine Robillard.
Phone: 514 598-7288, extension 246
Email: krobillard@option-consommateurs.org

Media Release: Alarming Increase in Internet Complaints must be Addressed

OTTAWA – The alarming increase in internet complaints reported by the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) today must be addressed by the regulator and the industry, claims the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).
PIAC noted that the CCTS Annual Report 2014-15, released today, shows a 52% increase in complaint issues related to internet service – which rose from 3315 last year to over 5000 in 2014-15.
“Canadians rely more and more on their internet connection – so it is disturbing that complaints against ISPs have shot up” said John Lawford, Executive Director and General Counsel of PIAC.  “The internet service industry should consider its practices and the CRTC should consider an Internet Code like the Wireless Code.”
PIAC further notes the CCTS Annual Report shows complaints about “non-disclosure of/misleading information about terms” now is the most frequent single complaint issue, ahead of even “incorrect charge” – although all billing issues combined still predominate overall.
“The systemic issue with non-disclosure of, and frankly incorrect descriptions of, terms and conditions – most often by salespeople and front line customer service staff –  to consumers has not been adequately addressed by the industry despite the Wireless Code,” continued Lawford.  “We trust the CRTC will consider expanding the CCTS’s enforcement powers, including the ability to directly address systemic issues, to reverse this troublesome trend.”
 
For more information please contact:
 John Lawford
Executive Director
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
ONE Nicholas Street, Suite 1204
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7B7
(613) 562-4002 x25
(613) 447-8125 (cell)
jlawford@piac.ca
 
http://www.piac.ca

Just the Basics

Is access to the Internet essential for Canadian life, and is it affordable? These are the questions at the heart of the review of basic telecommunications services being conducted by the CRTC.   The answers given will change the requirements telecommunications providers will have to meet to offer their services to Canadians. Matching these requirements to the needs of Canadians is a difficult but crucial task for the CRTC.
The question: “Is telecommunications essential?” was posed previously by the CRTC – in the late 1990s – for wireline telephone service. The CRTC answered that it was. They also specified the quality of service that had to be offered to be considered “basic”: touch-tone access; flat-rate local calls; access to the long distance network; a copy of the local telephone directory and access to the internet at dial-up speeds.
The CRTC also required telecom companies to contribute to subsidizing the cost of telephone services in “high cost serving areas”. These are areas where the cost of providing service is higher than the prices (and resulting revenue) that can be reasonably charged by telecom providers in these areas (largely rural, remote and northern communities). Although this subsidy is raised from subscribers rates, many Canadians still are unaware that they have been helping all Canadians have access to high quality telephone service at reasonable prices, anywhere in Canada.
Now, the Affordable Access Coalition (a group consisting of PIAC, ACORN Canada, the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organizations of B.C. (COSCO), the Consumers’ Association of Canada (CAC), and the National Pensioners’ Federation (NPF)) are making the case that broadband has to be added to the telephone as an essential telecommunications service for Canadians.
“There should be no question that access to high speed internet should be a right of all Canadians,” Geoff White, Counsel to PIAC asserts. “It’s absolutely essential for connecting to others, for accessing the digital economy, accessing important government services, for education, for creating small businesses, and so much more. The same way that the CRTC recognized that the telephone was an essential service for all Canadians, the case for broadband internet access for all is even more compelling,” he adds.
If broadband is essential to all, should it also then be affordable to all? This is a question PIAC has delved into extensively in its report released earlier this year: “No Consumer Left Behind: A Canadian Affordability Framework for Communications Services in a Digital Age”. PIAC found indications that many Canadians were sacrificing funds from their food budget, rent, and in certain cases, even medication to maintain broadband access. The report recommended that Canada establish an explicit, enforceable universal service obligation for telecommunications and broadcasting services, and require communications services to be affordable to all Canadians. PIAC presently is researching a follow-up report to attempt to quantify the affordability problems of Canadians and to propose further solutions.   Meanwhile though, as part of the AAC, PIAC has spearheaded arguments at the CRTC that affordability of internet service is as essential as access to the internet.
“Lower income Canadians told us they need communications to fully participate in society, now more than ever,” said Alysia Lau, PIAC Legal Counsel and co-author of the report and PIAC’s counsel within the AAC. “They are trying to cope, but they also need more control over what they spend, and more choice of services.”
The AAC in its filings with the CRTC has proposed a “Broadband Deployment Subsidy Mechanism” which would have telecom companies put aside approximately 1% of their revenues each year into a fund which would be distributed through a competitive bidding process to companies willing to serve areas where broadband access was “above cost”. Additionally, the AAC proposed an Affordability Funding Mechanism levied at a similar percentage, but which would be reserved for low-income Canadian households who subscribe to telecom services – so that they can apply the discount towards one of those services and make them more affordable.
Finally, the CRTC must decide, if broadband is an ‘essential service’, what would be an acceptable level (for example, minimum download and upload speeds) to be considered a basic service – much as they did for the minimum service characteristics of telephone service in the 1990s.
“I think we definitely would like to see broadband internet included as a basic telecom service and at significantly higher speeds than the aspirational targets now, which are 5 Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload speed,” Lau noted of PIAC’s hopes for the decision. “We would like to see 20 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload as the minimum by 2020. We think that’s what Canadian households will need going into the future, and those are the kind of speeds you would need if Canada wants to be competitive with other countries.”
The CRTC will be asking for public comment on these questions in the very near future to gather a better idea from Canadians themselves regarding their opinions on broadband services. This will be followed by a CRTC hearing in April 2016 where PIAC with the AAC will be working to make broadband affordable and accessible to consumers.

Schrödinger’s Streaming Music Plan

Streaming has become the fastest growing method of selling access to music – a point not lost on wireless providers who know consumers like to listen on the go. But this seemingly “win-win” scenario can become a “loss” for equal treatment of consumer internet traffic if telecom companies can prioritize or discount data that is used for streaming audio or video.
In September of 2015, PIAC, along with Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of BC and the Consumers Association of Canada, filed an application against Vidéotron and its new “Unlimited Music” service, which offers free streaming of music – that is, there is no counting of, and thus no charge for, the data consumers use to listen – though only for audio and only for the “right” services, such as Spotify, Stingray, Rdio, and Google Music.
“By allowing unlimited streaming of specific types of online content for certain providers, Vidéotron is favouring itself and its streaming partners,” stated Geoff White, Counsel to PIAC. “Vidéotron is treating a very small subset of internet traffic differently. They’re doing so in such a way that, since they aren’t being charged any rates or overages, customers are obviously going to favour that content.”
White continued, “Vidéotron’s role as a traditional telecom provider in the eyes of telecom law, is to just pass information from point A to point B. Now they are inserting themselves in an editorial manner, in a way that is helping move end-users towards certain content by favoring the way in which it’s treated from a billing perspective.“
This isn’t the first time that PIAC has intervened when a provider has threatened discrimination against certain types of internet traffic (sometimes described as a violation of “net neutrality” – but in fact a long-standing prohibition as well in telecommunications law) with a streaming service. Bell Mobility made available a similar offer with its ‘Mobile TV’ application. Customers were allowed viewing of Bell owned or controlled streaming video, at reduced prices, so long as it was seen through Bell’s app. In that case, the CRTC ruled Bell’s Mobile TV app left competitors with an undue disadvantage, as Bell was showing preference to its own services over the data of any other party providing data (including competing content), a violation of the Telecommunications Act. That case is now before the Federal Court of Appeal, but PIAC contends in its application that it is effectively similar to Vidéotron’s current program.
John Lawford, Executive Director of PIAC points out that what makes this “zero-rated” streaming music a bad deal for consumers is the stifling effect it has if you’re not on board with the telecommunications company providing access to the internet. “For innovators and rival streaming music providers, your only way through the door with these types of deals in place is through big service providers. Some may not have the money to compete, others could find that there’s just no room.”
“Many other companies would be tempted or forced to copy the same approach if it were allowed and then you would carve up the internet into deals,” Lawford explained. “You would end up with a situation where one provider will get you this piece of the ‘net and another with this piece. It’s not the kind of approach we prefer and it certainly harms innovators. How do you get in? By making deals with telecom providers with large subscriber bases. They’re not going to want to harm those already inside, so why let in an outsider? How do you develop a critical mass of listeners without free access to all subscribers?”
PIAC is hoping that the precedent set in the Bell Mobile TV case was a clear stance by the CRTC against this kind of subscription deal. While, as noted, that case is under appeal, consumers need a mobile internet connection that is unfettered by corporate deals with service providers. No data should be treated differently for a price. The case is still in before the CRTC, but PIAC hopes for a swift resolution to the issue in Spring 2016.

PIAC Represents consumers during CRTC hearing to review telecommunications ombudsman

OTTAWA – As part of its work in telecommunications and consumer rights, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) advocated for better consumer protection in the realm of telecommunications complaints in front of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on Tuesday, November 2, 2015. PIAC, appearing on behalf of the National Pensioner’s Federation (NPF) and the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organizations of British Columbia (COSCO), delivered a presentation recommending key improvements to the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS).
PIAC’s primary recommendations included: increasing and measuring public awareness, ensuring independence in board governance, and improving enforcement remedies available to Canadians in dispute with their cell phone, Internet, and potentially television service providers. After oral remarks, PIAC Executive Director and General Counsel John Lawford, Legal Counsel Alysia Lau, and Research and Parliamentary Affairs Analyst Jonathan Bishop responded to detailed questioning from the Commission on PIAC’s submission and recommendations, stressing the importance of the CCTS’s role in protecting and promoting consumer interests in an area as essential as telecommunications services.
PIAC delivered its presentation as part of the CRTC public proceeding, “Review of the structure and mandate of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services Inc”. The hearing will proceed over four days, November 3-6, 2015, and aims to clarify and improve the structure, mandate, and practices of the CCTS, the office of Canada’s telecommunications ombudsperson.
Members of the public may contribute their views by commenting at the CRTC’s online discussion forum set up for the CCTS proceeding.

 

Media Advisory: PIAC to represent consumers during CRTC hearing to review the structure and mandate of the telecommunications ombudsman

OTTAWA – In its continuing efforts to address consumers’ concerns with telecommunication services, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) will be appearing on behalf of the National Pensioner’s Federation (NPF) and the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organizations of British Columbia (COSCO) before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to discuss the structure and mandate of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS). The four-day long hearing begins on Tuesday, November 3 at 9:00 AM. PIAC/NPF/COSCO will appear on Tuesday, November 3, 2015.
For more information, please see the full written intervention filed by PIAC/NPF/COSCO to the CRTC on August 25, 2015.
 
WHO:
John Lawford, Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Alysia Lau, Legal Counsel at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Jonathan Bishop, Research and Parliamentary Affairs Analyst, will be at the hearing.
 
WHAT:
Appearing at the CRTC public proceeding “Review of the structure and mandate of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services Inc.”
 
WHERE:
Gatineau, Quebec
Conference Center
Portage IV, 140, Promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Quebec
Canadians will be able to listen to a live audio feed of the hearing and by going to http://www.crtc.gc.ca
Canadians can also can participate by sharing their comments in an online discussion forum, hosted by the CRTC.
PIAC is a non-profit organization that provides legal and research services on behalf of consumer interests, and, in particular, vulnerable consumer interests, concerning the provision of important public services.
 
Media Contact:
John Lawford
Executive Director and General Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
(613) 562-4002 ext. 25
(613) 562-4002×25
lawford@piac.ca
www.piac.ca
Alysia Lau
Legal Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
(613) 562-4002 ×38
Mobile: (613) 400-9145
alau@piac.ca
www.piac.ca

PIAC to Hold its Annual Dinner November 27th

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre
(PIAC)
Annual Dinner Presents:

Featured Speaker

Daniel Therrien

Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Friday November 27, 2015 at 6:00 PM

National Arts Centre, Fountain Room, Ottawa

The Evening’s Events

6:00 – 7:00 p.m. Cocktails (Cash Bar)

7:15 Keynote Speaker

Daniel Therrien

Privacy Commissioner of Canada

7:30 p.m.

Four Course Meal
Served with 2 glasses of wine

Throughout the evening there will be a draw for a door prize as well as draws for other prizes.
Also Featuring Manhattan Glow

The registration form can be downloaded here.
Cheques should be made payable to:
PUBLIC INTEREST ADVOCACY CENTRE
Please return the form to:
Fax to: 613-562-0007                                email to: dbrady@piac.ca
Thank you.
Corporate tables also available; please inquire.

CRTC Part 1 Application by CAC-COSCO-PIAC regarding Vidéotron’s “Unlimited Music” undue preference

The Consumers’ Association of Canada (“CAC”), the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organizations of British Columbia (“COSCO”), and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (“PIAC”), (collectively with CAC and COSCO, the “Applicants” or “CAC-COSCO-PIAC”) file this Application under Part 1 of the Telecommunications Act and pursuant to the CRTC Rules of Practice and Procedure, regarding the billing practices of Québecor Média and its wholly owned subsidiary Vidéotron (collectively “Vidéotron” or the “Respondent”), in respect of Vidéotron’s “Unlimited Music” service.

Passengers Need New Flight Path for Airline Complaints

New PIAC report, “Consumer Protections for Airline Passengers”
OTTAWA, August 26, 2015– In a new report released today, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) called for an Airline Code to champion the rights of Canadian air passengers and an Air Passenger Complaints Commissioner. The report, entitled “Consumer Protections for Airline Passengers,” examined current consumer protections and recourse options available to airline passengers in Canada and proposes new models which will strengthen consumer protection in the airline industry moving forward.
“Over 120 million Canadians choose to travel by air each year, yet the consumer protection framework for airline passengers is unclear and not always efficient or effective for consumers,” noted John Lawford, PIAC’s Executive Director and co-author of the report. “The current consumer protections for passengers need to be grounded due to a lack of transparency and promotion,” contends Lawford.
The Airline Code would be a comprehensive statement of rules applying to air travel in Canada. The proposed Code would ensure that airline passengers have the information and protection they need to make informed choices and participate effectively in the market. The proposed Air Passenger Complaints Commissioner would have a primary mandate to resolve complaints at the individual case level. The Commissioner would resolve air passenger complaints applicable to all airlines operating in Canada.
“Taken together, a future Airline Code and Air Passenger Complaints Commissioner, would clarify the rules for air travel passengers in Canada. Moreover, these measures may get the reputation of Canadian airlines out of a holding pattern, in relation to the treatment of consumer complaints, stated Jonathan Bishop, PIAC’s Research Analyst and co-author of the report.
To read PIAC’s report, please consult the following link:
PIAC, Consumer Protections for Airline Passengers – Final Report (31 March 2015)
PIAC received funding from the Canada Transportation Act Review Secretariat to prepare this report. The views expressed in the report are not necessarily those of the Secretariat, Transport Canada or the Government of Canada.
 
For more information please contact:
John Lawford
Executive Director & General Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
(613) 562-4002×25
lawford@piac.ca
www.piac.ca
Jonathan Bishop
Research & Parliamentary Analyst
Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC)
(613) 562-4002×23
jbishop@piac.ca
www.piac.ca