Fog obscures VoIP complaint resolution process

Telephone-service customers on incumbent phone networks have a straightforward path to complaint resolution and restitution should the services they receive fail to impress, but the same can’t be said for VoIP service customers. While the CRTC reviews the complaints it receives from phone users, and engages carriers to help solve problems, the complaint resolution process for some VoIP users isn’t so obvious. In truth, it’s as clear as mud. After several interviews with commission staff, Network Letter concludes that Canada’s telephone-service regulations might not adequately address problems that can crop up in the VoIP world such as dropped or incomplete calls and echo on the line. Visit the CRTC’s website; view the Complaints and Inquiries section and the Consumer Information section. They say the commission forwards complaints on to phone companies, and the carriers must respond within 20 days. Depending on the situation, the CRTC will intervene if warranted – it might even refer the case to its legal directorate for further scrutiny. A pull-down menu in the online step-by-step complaint form offers options: want to complain about your home phone service? Select "Telephone." Trouble with your mobile phone? Pick "Cellular Services." VoIP connection keeps dropping? Choose "VoIP." So what happens to those VoIP complaints? It’s not clear. In an interview, Paul Godin, the CRTC’s acting director-general of competition, costing and tariffs, suggested that the commission pays some of these missives little attention. "There are a number of people who will call and say, ‘My conversations keep dropping off when I use my IP phone. What can you do about it?’ That’s not our responsibility," he says. Godin explains that thanks to forbearance, the CRTC doesn’t regulate some aspects of VoIP service, including connection quality. The commission sometimes refers VoIP complaints to Canada’s Competition Bureau, but the bureau only investigates cases in which anti-competitive activities might play a role.Why, then, does the CRTC even have a VoIP complaint form on its website? The commission does get involved in some VoIP issues. For instance, the CRTC says VoIP providers must offer 911 service, and access for the hearing- and visually-impaired. According to Godin, the regulator gets sneaky to straighten out rule-skirters in these cases. " providers have to buy certain services like phone numbers from the incumbent telephone companies. We would call the incumbents that we regulate and say their customers, the IP providers, are not following the rules. The services IP providers buy from incumbents come with terms and conditions approved by the commission. We could order the incumbents to stop providing the services. It’s a sort of back-door method." But simple connectivity is not the CRTC’s purview. "If we’re talking about calls dropping off every now and then or a billing dispute, that has nothing to do with us," Godin says. It seems VoIP users are on their own. And who knows how many complaints people have made? When Network Letter requested statistics from the CRTC regarding the number of VoIP complaints the commission receives compared to the number of traditional phone-service complaints it receives, the regulator could provide no useful metrics. A spokesman explains that given the massive discrepancy between the size of Canada’s VoIP-user and POTS-user populations, and various other unspecified factors, the CRTC’s client services team determines that "it would be impossible to determine statistics on the subject," the spokesperson writes in an email. Joe Parent, VP of marketing at Vonage Canada, says the apparent lack of scrutiny is no help to his firm. "It creates the kind of situation where guys like you call me and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on here? Is this a gap in the regulations? Are customers not protected?’" But Parent wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s a gap. "Technically there isn’t. I think it’s one of those things where they’re being a little vague." The CRTC is less vague about traditional phone service, especially when it comes to quality-of-service (QoS) measurements. The commission has a set of QoS criteria that incumbents must meet. If the incumbents don’t meet those criteria, the CRTC orders the companies to pay a rebate to customers. No such regime exists for VoIP operators such as Vonage, though. Does this leave customers unprotected from shoddy QoS?Parent thinks not. He says Vonage tries its best to satisfy users, "right down to me taking calls from customers – and they do call me on a regular basis." Janet Yale, Telus Corp.’s executive VP, corporate affairs, says competition among service providers is a solid defence against poor QoS. "In a competitive environment, if you cut corners, people will go. The issue isn’t quality-of-service. The issue is, why is one Voice over IP provider – us – price regulated?" VoIP price regulation is a prime concern these days. In May Industry Minister Maxime Bernier ordered the commission to review its VoIP price-regulation decision of 2005, wherein the CRTC said VoIP services from incumbents such as Telus must undergo the same regulatory scrutiny as do traditional incumbent phone services. The incumbent providers marked the decision as backwards, noting that VoIP’s low price barrier to entry made it ripe for regulatory forbearance. This past May, the federal government gave the CRTC 120 days to review the VoIP decision, so the result should come out soon.

Fog obscures VoIP complaint resolution process

News | 08/17/2006 4:00 am EDT

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