Industry Committee on March 20th, 2023

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I'll turn that question over to Mr. Rajabiun.

Do you believe that the wireless code, the Internet Code and the current regulations are sufficient to ensure that customers know what they're getting?

[Dr. Reza Rajabiun]

This bill has nothing to do with wireless services. That's just an obfuscation. This is about fixed networks. As you've heard and as I've explained, as has Mr. Maker, the Internet Code does not incorporate any elements against misleading advertisements or service quality levels. As I mentioned, the CRTC explicitly excluded putting those in the Internet Code. They're not in there.

On those two points, the first one about wireless is tangential and not related to this bill, and the second one is factually incorrect.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you. I will change course here.

Mr. Maker, you mentioned some of the statistics and the ability of the commission to deal with complaints put forward by customers from across Canada.

I live in and represent a riding and an area that has major problems with accessing Internet as a basic service, so I'm just curious: On behalf of my constituents, what percentage of your complaints came from rural Canada and what percentage came from urban Canada? Second, what was your percentage rate on solving the issues in rural Canada versus the issues that you were able to deal with in urban Canada?

[Howard Maker]

I'm not sure we have any specific data on that. I know we had a quick look at some of the stats after receiving your invitation to appear here.

Josée, do you have any line of sight into that?

[Josée Thibault]

On the first point, unfortunately I can't really talk about the resolution rate for rural Canadians versus urban Canadians, but I do have some information in terms of the proportion of complaints that come from rural Canadians versus urban Canadians.

When we take a look at all complaint types—not just Internet service issues but all Internet, all wireless, all home phone—we see that the proportion of complaints coming from rural Canadians is about 10%. When we zero in on Internet quality-of-service issues, that jumps up to 20%. There's definitely a disproportionate number coming from rural Canadians.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

That's very helpful.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You can go a little longer if you want, but you're out of time.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I think I'm good.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

MP Gaheer, you have five minutes.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for their contributions to the committee thus far. My first question is for CCTS.

What recourse do consumers currently have if the speeds that are being provided to them don't match expectations? What is the whole gamut of what they can do?

[Howard Maker]

The first thing that we encourage them to do is contact their service provider and see what the problem is and whether it can be sorted out. Most of the providers have troubleshooting policies and tools that they apply to make sure that they're delivering, under the circumstances, the best service they can to that particular customer.

If they are unable to give the customer what they believe they're entitled to, the customer is welcome to file a complaint with CCTS, and we'll examine it based on the information that's available to us related to that particular complaint. That's how it would work within our process.

As you heard previously, Ms. Thibault described the process for how we look at those complaints and how we process them.

[Josée Thibault]

On a practical level, in terms of your question about what specific recourse we can offer consumers, it looks like getting to the bottom of what the issue is. It looks like crediting any overage charges.

I think I gave an example in our opening remarks. If a customer is on a plan for 100 megabits per second and they're getting 25, and the provider actually offers an up-to-50 plan, we would look at the difference between those costs and we would require the service provider to compensate for that difference. We could also provide additional compensation for up to $5,000 to consumers above and beyond that crediting of the billed amount.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Great. Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Knight.

You mentioned similar initiatives put in place by other countries. How does Bill C-288 compare? Could it be stronger? If so, in what ways?

[Erin Knight]

That's a good question.

I think I'll answer a little bit of that and maybe throw that to one of the other panellists who might have a little bit more background on it.

I can mention the FCC's broadband labelling approach. As I mentioned, when you subscribe to an Internet plan in the U.S., you would be provided with things like typical download speed, typical upload speed, typical latency—things that are not presently on advertising materials in Canada if you were to subscribe to an Internet plan here.

That's the same type of thing that this bill is talking about. It's talking about making that network performance data available to the consumer at the point of sale, as CCTS has mentioned. It does follow that. I am in favour of that. I think it's a great approach. We want to make sure that people are empowered at that point of sale.

If there's someone who wants to jump in and talk more specifically about some other examples, feel free, but that's what I have to share.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

It doesn't look like anyone else will take you up on that.

My next question is generally open for the panel.

This bill would require the CRTC to hold public hearings to determine how an Internet service would be required to publicly provide service quality and other metrics.

What kinds of metrics would you like to see come out of those hearings?

Anyone can answer.

[Dr. Reza Rajabiun]

Well, you have speeds. I think the point that we should also mention is that the reliability of services has become more important. Speeds are important, and bandwidth, but there are also things like latency and jitter, these technical terms that enable video streaming. The U.S. is adding latency.

You might remember Rogers' big outage a few months back. Another element that could be added, which usually exists in some business contracts, is service being operational continuously. You can have some minimum thresholds for service being out, but some compensatory mechanism and information about commitments to keeping the service up can be useful. For example, in retail business contracts in certain markets in Canada, the supplier, the service provider, guarantees a minimum service quality objective for you, but you can't do that in the retail residential market or outside of urban cores.

These are aspects of the contract and the signalling between buyers and sellers that could be put in there, but the more information you put in there, the more confusing it gets. You need to stick with some key performance indicators, which are up-and-down speeds and latency.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mr. Généreux, the floor is yours.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Thibault, since you have a beautiful French name, I will speak to you in French, if you don't mind. I assume you speak French.

[Josée Thibault]

I speak French well enough, but I am more comfortable in English.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Okay.

Pardon my ignorance, Ms. Thibault, but is the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services, CCTS, part of the CRTC?

[Josée Thibault]

No, it's not. It is an independent agency. Its mandate comes under the CRTC, but the CCTS is independent.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Okay.

I'm curious about your funding sources.

Are you funded through the CRTC, since you are under its authority?

[Josée Thibault]

No, we are funded directly by industry.

We charge service providers for each complaint received by the CCTS to recover our costs of handling those complaints.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

In that case, aren't you in a bit of a conflict of interest? Your funding comes from all your clients. Aren't you something of a judge and jury in this case?