Telus opposes calls for caps on bills, mandatory text and voice overage alerts

A proposed rule that wireless carriers be required to alert consumers as they approach monthly voice and text message limits to avoid “bill shock” would be impractical to implement and impossible in some cases, Telus Corp. said. In a draft code of conduct released in January, the CRTC proposed that carriers be required to send text message alerts to subscribers when they reach thresholds in their wireless services. The commission suggested that carriers send the alerts when a customer reaches 50, 80 or 100 per cent of their contracted monthly services. It did not specify which mobile services the requirement would apply to. Telus said Monday that carriers should only be required to notify subscribers who are approaching their monthly mobile data limits, not their voice or text messaging limits. The company said there are barriers to tracking customers' text and voice services use in real-time. “Voice and text usage notifications would be difficult to build and, in fact, impossible in some cases to provide on a real-time basis,” Brent Johnson, Telus' vice-president of mobility solutions, said during the first day of a weeklong CRTC hearing to establish a national code of conduct for wireless carriers. “For example, in the case of calls made while roaming overseas, the necessary call detail records are often not delivered to us by the foreign carrier until well after the charges have been incurred,” Johnson said. He said mobile plans that provide unlimited services during weekends or weeknights would also complicate the real-time tracking of voice and data services, as well as plans that allow users unlimited calls or texts to “favourite” contacts or family numbers. Johnson said rules requiring wireless providers to monitor voice and text messaging in real time could cause carriers to stop offering plans with limited voice or data services. Janet Lo, legal counsel for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), said in a presentation to commissioners Monday that her group has heard a “very strong sentiment” that consumers want a “proactive mechanism” to protect them against bill shock. She said PIAC’s research has found that consumers want real-time notifications delivered to their handsets. Lo said the CRTC should “cap” how much carriers can charge subscribers who go over their monthly allowance. She asked the commission to impose a default cap that would prevent consumers from incurring more than $50 in extra charges per month, and to allow consumers to change their individual caps as they see fit. Telus said a spending cap would be “unnecessarily prescriptive” and predicted that such a requirement would not help wireless users. Bernard Lord, president and CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), said spending caps could cause subscribers to lose service when they need it. “Having a teenager as mine that went on a trip, if there would have been a $50 cap, his phone would have stopped working while he was away and I wouldn't want that to happen,” Lord said. “That to me would be the worst circumstance.” Johnson said consumers most often encounter bill shock after using their mobile device in another country. He said Telus has had “significant success” sending real-time notifications to subscribers who are roaming in other countries and using data services. “Typical data usage volumes at home can be very expensive when travelling in some parts of the world,” Johnson said. “This is what leads to bill shock and why we’ve focused our notification efforts on data and roaming usage.” Rogers Communications Inc., which is scheduled to appear at the CRTC hearing Tuesday, said in a press release Friday that it will roll out new roaming packages for Canadian consumers using mobile data in the United States. The company said the packages will allow subscribers to purchase 50 megabytes of wireless data for 24 hours in the U.S. for $8. —With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca

Telus opposes calls for caps on bills, mandatory text and voice overage alerts

News | 02/12/2013 1:04 pm EST

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