CRTC orders carriers to provide better service for blind at reseller level

The CRTC has ordered Canada’s telecommunications carriers, including mobile wireless operators, to make sure their resellers are providing adequate service to blind and visually impaired subscribers and potential customers – Telecom Decision 2002-13. The March 8 decision goes a step further than an earlier ruling that forced the carriers themselves to provide certain information upon request to the blind. In a decision last fall (Order CRTC 2001-690, dated Aug. 31/01), the commission ordered all Canadian carriers to provide billing, rates, terms and conditions information and other inserts in alternative formats to the blind and visually impaired. In the ruling, the CRTC asked the carrier community if the new rules should be extended to affiliated and unaffiliated resellers of their services. In two February 2001 rulings (Order CRTC 2001-163 and Order CRTC 2001-164), the telecom regulator "found that customers who are blind are at a disadvantage by not being able to obtain, upon request and in a format that meets their needs, the rates, terms and conditions of a service." Those decisions came as a result of a Part VII application filed by long-time telecom and broadcast advocate for the blind, Chris Stark (RoW, Sept. 5/00 and March 5/01). In subsequent consultation, several issues were raised as to the difficulty in enforcing compliance by carriers’ resellers. The Bell-affiliated companies, Telus Corp., as well as some independent telcos were concerned that they didn’t have the means to monitor or police resellers’ consumer relations practices. "They proposed that the commission’s decision should set out the specific language of the provisions in question to be included in tariffs and agreements with resellers so as to ensure consistency throughout the industry," Decision 2002-13 states. Microcell Telecommunications submitted that enforcement of such regulations could be problematic because the carrier doesn’t have a direct relationship with resellers’ customers. "It proposed that the commission could order the carrier to suspend or terminate service to the reseller if it was satisfied that, based on the facts before it, such a sanction was warranted," the CRTC decision notes. In its conclusion, the CRTC considered that all consumers should have equal access to billing information, rates, and terms and conditions of service. "The commission directs that as a condition of offering and providing any tele-communications services to resellers that provide end-users, a Canadian carrier must include in their applicable tariffs, contracts or other arrangements, a condition requiring that the reseller make available (previously discussed information) within a reasonable period of time, in Braille, large print or computer diskette or such other format as is mutually agreed upon by the parties," the commission writes.

CRTC orders carriers to provide better service for blind at reseller level

News | March 18, 2002

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