CRTC tells CCTS to step up enforcement, ‘naming and shaming’

In addition to expanding the mandate of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) Thursday to include TV service, the CRTC told the organization to make more use of enforcement tools at its disposal, including “naming and shaming.” The CRTC said it believes that “promoting and monitoring compliance are necessary first steps in enforcement… it is not clear how much effort the CCTS has put into these activities or into enforcement, but at this point it would appear to be insufficient.” The tools the CCTS has at its disposal include “expelling, pursing civil litigation, and naming and shaming” but the organization is reluctant to use them, the CRTC said. “With regard to naming and shaming, the Commission is not convinced that the CCTS's efforts have been sufficient to evaluate the effectiveness of this tool. The CCTS has not adopted a general practice to publicize the names of companies that are not in compliance with all of the obligations,” it said, though it noted that CCTS has published news releases in some cases. The regulator said it expects CCTS to “more actively monitor and encourage compliance with its obligations, as well as to enforce these obligations,” to make available adequate funding for monitoring and compliance activities, and “to publish in a more prominent manner the names of companies that are non-compliant with participation obligations related to promotion, paying fees to the CCTS, implementing CCTS decisions, and participating in the CCTS, as both part of the ‘name and shame’ approach to enforcement and to ensure that consumers have more information when choosing service providers.” It added that CCTS can also revoke a service provider's participation in the organization and initiate Part 1 complaints to request action by the regulator. CCTS commissioner Howard Maker said in a phone interview Thursday that the organization has had occasion to go down the “naming and shaming” route in the past, but that it wasn't as effective an enforcement tool as they'd hoped. "We had asked the commission to take the issue on and create a process and assist us," Maker said. "We're a little disappointed they chose to punt it back to us." Ultimately, Maker said, Thursday's decision to expand the CCTS mandate to include TV reflects confidence in the organization's past success, and that the goal is to reach a good outcome for consumers. In Thursday’s decision, the CRTC also said that by September 2017, all licensed TV providers and “related exempt” providers must become participants in the CCTS, joining wireless, Internet, and landline phone providers. That will coincide with the deadline for TV providers to become compliant with the CRTC’s TV service provider code, something the two parties already announced earlier this year. The code, among other stipulations, requires broadcast distributors to provide easy-to-understand information about what channels a customer is getting, clarity about the duration of promotional offers and time commitments a consumer must undertake, explicit information on charges or taxes that might be applied on top of an advertised price, and provide 30 days notice before any pricing changes take effect. Thursday’s decision follows a hearing the CRTC held in November 2015, which also looked into whether participation in CCTS should continue to be mandatory for telecoms, among other issues. At the time, CCTS assistant commissioner Josée Thibault said adding TV to the CCTS' responsibilities would be “a relatively straightforward exercise,” but asked the CRTC not to add other responsibilities to its mandate. Maker said during the hearing that including TV service is “a natural fit” for CCTS. BCE Inc. told the CRTC at the time that the CCTS mandate shouldn’t be expanded to allow it to become a consumer advocacy body, a position similar to that expressed by Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. In its decision, the CRTC said it exempted independent providers with fewer than 20,000 subscribers, but included small providers who are affiliated with larger telecoms. “While related exempt may serve smaller or remote locations, their affiliation with licensed TVSPs generally means that they have more resources, such as centralized customer service centres and billing systems, than independent exempt TVSPs,” it said. “Requiring related exempt TVSPs to participate in the CCTS will minimize confusion for consumers and serve to extend the benefits provided by the CCTS to a wider customer base.” The announcement comes a couple of weeks after rules stipulating TV providers must offer skinny basic packages, the implementation of which has been the target of some criticism, including regarding tactics that some providers are using to keep people on higher-priced packages. CRTC spokeswoman Patricia Valladao confirmed Thursday that the CRTC has thus far received about 600 complaints regarding the new services, but said that’s not out of the ordinary for the commission. She noted that after a recent Amber Alert was broadcast, the CRTC received about 125 complaints. She said that there was a spike in calls after the skinny basic rules were implemented, and “now it’s coming down to normal.” In the context of the amount of complaints the CRTC previously received on issues like telemarketing, the Wireless Code, and usage-based billing, for example, Valladao said “it’s just normal day-to-day business.” Valladao said that any time the CRTC implements a change, it receives “a large volume of calls.” The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) said Thursday they haven’t yet ruled out launching a Part 1 proceeding on the issue. “At this point we haven’t decided what form of action PIAC might take, but we are continuing to monitor,” PIAC legal counsel Alysia Lau said in an email. When asked whether today’s announcement means those complaints will now be part of the CCTS mandate, Valladao said that CCTS will be responsible for some types of complaints, such as contract compliance, but not cases where a customer is simply not satisfied with a service provider’s skinny basic offer, for example. In its decision, the regulator said the CCTS’ mandate regarding TV service includes “contract terms and commitments, billing disputes and errors, service delivery, and credit management.” “No compelling evidence was provided during the proceeding to show that consumers would be better served by expanding the CCTS' mandate to include resolving TVSP-related complaints that are handled by another body, including broadcasting-related issues that are subject to Commission regulatory activities,” it said. Issues that aren’t a part of the CCTS mandate include digital media distribution undertakings, like streaming services, “broadcasting content, journalistic ethics, accessibility issues (such as closed captioning and described video), and simultaneous substitution.” According to the CCTS' most recent annual report, customers raised 7,294 television-related issues with the organization, which it couldn't accept since they were outside of its mandate. That doesn't necessarily correlate into the same number of complaints, said CCTS’ Maker, since not all the phone calls or written submissions may have lead to complaints had they been explored. But the CCTS expects the tally of TV-related complaints will be "a material number, as accountants say," Maker said. By the time the change kicks in next September, Maker said they'll likely need to add staff to handle the increased workload, "but we have some time to plan for it." Last year, the agency accepted 9,988 complaints, with wireless issues and billing problems, specifically, leading the pack. On Wednesday, a new study on Canadians’ TV habits found the vast majority of cable TV subscribers feel they pay too much for their current packages, which include channels they don't watch. According to results of a survey conducted by Insights West, 90 per cent of respondents said there are many channels included in their current cable package that they never watch and 88 per cent of respondents said they pay too much for the service. Fifty-five per cent of respondents said they would be interested in the CRTC-mandated skinny basic and pick-and-pay TV offerings. Nearly two-thirds of Canadian cable TV subscribers said they are dissatisfied with the variety of programming they receive in their current plan, with customers living in Manitoba and Saskatchewan the most unsatisfied (76 per cent), followed by those in British Columbia (72 per cent). Only 43 per cent of Quebec customers expressed discontent with their programming choices, which Mario Canseco, Insights West vice president of public affairs, said was due to options already available. "Quebecers have had access to pick-and-pay cable for years," he said in a press release. "They are less likely to complain about programming variety than residents of other provinces." Results were based on an online survey of 1,049 Canadians, conducted March 7-10, with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.caand editing by Shruti Shekar at sshekar@thewirereport.ca

CRTC tells CCTS to step up enforcement, ‘naming and shaming’

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CRTC tells CCTS to step up enforcement, ‘naming and shaming’

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