Industry Committee on March 20th, 2023

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you for the illuminating discussion so far.

I want to focus my questions on the costs to consumers and the fees they pay. To start with, I want to go back for some clarification.

Ms. Thibault, you mentioned in response to an earlier question that you are able to go back as a result of a complaint and adjust the bill of a consumer. I want to know if that was a one-bill-only thing. Do you fix it for that one month when the consumer had a complaint, or does it adjust the bill in perpetuity to reflect the actual service that consumer is receiving?

[Josée Thibault]

It depends on the circumstances.

If the customer is on a plan that provides them up to 100 megabits per second and they're regularly getting up to 25, and we find that there's a plan available from this provider that's up to 50, then we will usually require that provider to compensate the customer for the difference between those two plans for the months that the customer was paying for them. If it was for 10 months, then it's for 10 months. We would propose to the customer to consider going down to the 50 megabits plan if that's more suitable to them. It's up to the customer to decide whether they wish to do that or not.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

It's looking backwards, in other words, and not forwards. That's fine.

The example that comes to mind is electricity. I think all of us pay an electricity bill in our homes. We pay for the power at the rate at which we consume it. It doesn't do it now on electronic things, but the old meters used to spin around, and you could see how much power you were using. You knew your bill was going to go up because the thing was going fast.

Right now, I think when we look at plans.... My plan is 100 megabits per second, and it's $100 per month. The provider is placing a value on that higher speed. The 50 megabit per second rate is $50, so obviously that's worth less.

Consumers are paying the highest rate and getting a much lower-speed product. They're consuming at a lower rate, so they should be paying less. It's almost like a pay-as-you-go model, perhaps. I wonder how the witnesses today would respond to that kind of system.

I was hoping to draw a comparison between that kind of option versus something that I don't see explicitly in the bill as it's drafted now, a guaranteed minimum speed. The big boldface number that you think you're getting is the minimum speed. You'll pay for that, and if you don't get that speed, then there would be a reduction in price.

Those are two different ways of looking at how consumers could pay for what they're getting. I'd love to hear your response to that. Do you feel that there's room for amendments in this bill to accommodate either of those?

[Dr. Reza Rajabiun]

The minimum speeds would be easy to incorporate into this bill.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Would it be in such a way that the invoice would be adjusted downward when those speeds were not provided?

[Dr. Reza Rajabiun]

You could have minimum speed and then advertised speed, because they're not the same thing. Speeds vary. It's a dynamic.

It's not like electricity that you're being charged for by volume. The electricity model you used.... Telecom providers would love nothing better than to use that kind of meter billing. They were doing that before, but now with bit competition, we are towards unlimited. You're not paying for the volume of what you're using like you do with electricity; you're paying for the size of the pipe, which is the bandwidth of your speed plan. It's a different market in that sense.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

That's even if the pipe is half empty half of the time. I understand.

Do you think that in that model, if the minimum advertised speed was not reached on an average basis, it would be incumbent on the provider to lower the bill for that month? It would be a downward adjustment. What happens in other countries and jurisdictions?

[Dr. Reza Rajabiun]

They have different approaches.

Some countries have a regulator like the CRTC. In Germany, they have kept the power themselves. The CRTC of Germany deals with complaints at the individual level and moves towards systematic fines when it doesn't happen in a systematic manner. Individual cases don't really incentivize bad actors to do better, because they are very small fines, essentially. Sometimes it might have to go towards more monetary penalties.

Some other countries have a system like ours, in that essentially the regulators have outsourced enforcement and compliance with the codes of conduct to a third party organization. In some countries, the competition authorities deal with this, so it's not the telecom regulator directly.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you very much for that.

Ms. Knight, do you have any reflections on this line of questioning and how we might better tie fee to service for consumers?

[Erin Knight]

That's a really good question. As a consumer advocate, what I would say is that people are going to be in favour of whatever we can do legislatively to allow them to get more affordable services, to get money back in their pockets. What I will say is that I don't know if this bill is the place to do it. It seems like it might be needlessly complicating something that is, again, fairly uncontroversial and fairly simple to do. I might break those two apart, but I would never say not to go after something that's going to help Canadians.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Okay.

For the CCTS, is there anything from you on this?

[Howard Maker]

I'm looking at the bill. It's quite clear, you know. You're asking the service providers to make metrics available around service quality during peak periods, whatever that means—typical download and upload speeds during peak periods, so that's all very simple and plain and clear—and then for any other information that the CRTC thinks is in the public interest, which gives a lot of scope for the CRTC to do what it thinks is best.

My sense is that the CRTC is the place that has the technical expertise on this issue. I recognize that there are many who are uncomfortable with the approach that the CRTC has taken in the past. I don't have any opinion on that, but I do think that the CRTC is the place where the technical expertise on this lies. They have the option to hear from consumer groups and from industry at the same time for an appropriate review of the evidence, and the policy can be had. I would caution against over-complicating this bill any further.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Okay. I understand.

If we do wind up in a “minimum advertised speed” situation, what happens, then, when that speed is not reached? What do you think the policy regimen should be? I mean, if we just change the way that the plans are advertised and people understand better what they're paying for, when the promised speed is still not reached, it feels like there should be an automatic monthly downward adjustment to the bill so that it doesn't have to go through the complex appeal and complaint process. Do you think there's room in the bill for that, or is that needlessly complicating things?

[Dr. Reza Rajabiun]

That's something that the CRTC can figure out, the implementation of it. The problem is that the transparency, as you mentioned, goes only so far, so whatever target is advertised as minimum, the verification process has to be set up.

For example, for the CCTS to validate the complaint, it can have a rule—CRTC can impose it or CCTS can come up with it themselves—so that you have to show that your contract says “100 megabits” and you've done 10 tests: One of them shows 100 megabits and nine of them show 50 megabits. Does that constitute a violation of your contract?

Those standards can be created later on.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Okay.

I think the chair might give me 30 seconds if anybody wants a final remark.

[Howard Maker]

I was going to say that I admire your creativity here and your desire to make sure we capture all the requirements that are needed. I think we should be careful, and I urge you to be careful about over-complicating this. I think the details should be left to the detail people.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fillmore.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chair, my questions are for Ms. Thibault or Mr. Maker.

I imagine that many of the complaints you receive must get resolved when the speed problem a consumer complains about is due to the equipment they have. If they don't have a good modem, for example, the speed they get on their computer will be significantly reduced.

Are there cases where the speed provided by the company is still good, but when it is processed by the consumer's modem, the consumer realizes that the problem has more to do with their equipment than with the company providing the telecommunications services?

[Howard Maker]

It is a complicating factor. There's no question that a customer's equipment can impact the speed they're receiving and that the way their network is configured can also have an impact on it. That's a challenge for us, I would say, because we don't have very good visibility into what the consumer is running in their premises. We can ask questions, but it's pretty hard. We don't have a team of engineers to go out and measure the speeds at customer premises.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

At that point, shouldn't the company provide equipment that would guarantee a good connection and adequate speed inside the device itself? Whether it's a phone or a computer, isn't that part of the chain that should get to the device?

[Josée Thibault]

One of the things we do when we get a complaint is make sure that the service provider has engaged in troubleshooting. That's not just about their own facilities; it's also helping the customer figure out things: What modem do you have? How old is your modem? How far is your modem from your equipment? Are you using it plugged in, or are you using it over Wi-Fi? Our expectation is that service providers are going to work with their customers in order to figure that out.

In many of the models, we see that when service providers provide Internet service, they also provide the equipment, so there's an obligation there to also look into that and make sure that the equipment is appropriate in those circumstances.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Overall, do problems resolve themselves? What percentage of complaints are really related to the individual's equipment as opposed to the connection provided by the provider?

[Josée Thibault]

I do not have the data to answer that question.

Nonetheless, I can say that sometimes the resolution of the complaint does depend on the equipment and the device, which requires a change of equipment. Ensuring the quality of services is work that happens between the consumer and the provider. However, that is not always the case.

Unfortunately, I don't have any data on that.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you very much.

By the way, your French is excellent. Don't hesitate to use it.