CRTC rules against Sugar Mobile in roaming dispute with Rogers

Rogers Communications Inc. doesn’t have to provide roaming services to Iristel Inc.’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Sugar Mobile, the CRTC said Wednesday in a move that closes the door on mandating access by MVNOs to wireless carriers’ networks. “We’re definitely disappointed,” Iristel president Samer Bishay said in a phone interview, adding that the company is evaluating its options regarding challenging or appealing the decision. He declined to comment on what the decision means for Sugar Mobile if the company doesn’t appeal or if any potential appeal isn’t successful. The CRTC ruled that the company had improperly allowed Sugar Mobile’s customers to “obtain permanent, rather than incidental” access to Rogers’ network. It ordered Sugar Mobile to stop unauthorized use of Rogers’ network within 50 days, and said that if it does not, Rogers can stop providing Iristel with roaming. The dispute between the two companies began a year ago, when Iristel subsidiary Ice Wireless filed a Part 1 application with the CRTC asking it to order Rogers to allow it and its MVNO Sugar Mobile to continue to use Rogers’ wireless network. Sugar Mobile customers mostly use WiFi for voice, text and Internet access, but their plans also include 200 MB of non-WiFi data per month, which is supported by the Rogers network when outside of the Ice Wireless service area. Rogers argued that it had the right to disconnect Sugar Mobile because Sugar was selling service outside of Ice Wireless’ operating territory, which violated the roaming agreement between the companies. BCE Inc. supported Rogers, arguing that Sugar’s providing of phone numbers outside of Ice’s territory and allowing customers to spend all of their time connected to Rogers’ network amounted to permanent roaming. The two sides differed in their interpretation of CRTC's 2015 wholesale wireless policy, which did not mandate wholesale MVNO access but did state that incumbent network providers have to provide roaming “on their GSM-based mobile wireless networks to all subscribers served by their wholesale roaming partners, including the subscribers of any MVNOs operating on their wholesale roaming partners' networks." On Wednesday, the CRTC said that framework “provides incidental, and not permanent, access to an incumbent’s network by the end-users of a wholesale roaming customer.” In a separate decision, it amended the terms and conditions of the mandated wholesale roaming offered by Rogers, Bell, and Telus Corp. to reflect that interpretation. It said that because Sugar Mobile customers outside of Ice Wireless territory are using WiFi instead of a cellular network “they cannot be considered to be using ’s network only incidentally.” “Including public Wi-Fi in the definition of a wireless carrier’s home network would fundamentally redefine the concept of roaming itself, since end-users accessing a visited network would not necessarily need to use any of the facilities owned or operated by the wholesale roaming customer to gain access to the visited network,” the commission said. Including public WiFi in the definition of a wireless carrier’s home network “would be contrary to the wholesale wireless framework’s stated objective of promoting facilities-based competition because it would eliminate incentives for a wireless carrier to invest in its own network,” it added. It also said Ice Wireless didn’t provide enough support for its argument that Sugar Mobile end users on WiFi outside of Ice’s territory still rely on Ice’s network backbone. “Nonetheless, even if there is some minimal connection between the end-user and Ice Wireless’s network backbone, the use of public Wi-Fi by a Sugar Mobile end-user outside Ice Wireless’s territory would still be subject to the concerns set out above and would not amount to the use of a home network for the purpose of roaming,” the decision said. Bishay said in the interview that permanent roaming is being violated in Canada “every day” by customers who buy plans in a cheaper jurisdiction and then use them outside of that home network. In an emailed statement, Rogers’ senior vice-president of regulatory affairs, David Watt, said that the company was “pleased the CRTC made the right call. We believe in innovation and a fair, competitive market — this was about violating a roaming agreement, plain and simple. “ Meanwhile, some advocates called for Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains to take steps to change the CRTC’s policy. Bishay said the decision was at odds with Bains’ emphasis on innovation, and noted there is precedent for the federal government to overrule the CRTC, like it did in 2009 over a decision regarding whether then-Wind Mobile could offer telecom services in Canada (though that decision was later overturned in court). While the CRTC clarified its stance on mandating MVNO access Wednesday, David Christopher, spokesman for Internet advocacy group OpenMedia, said in a phone interview the federal government sets the policy direction for the CRTC, and could adjust it to reopen the question of mandating MVNOs. “Navdeep Bains needs to be looking at… the big picture here and really asking himself what’s going to be in the interest of Canadian consumers and also businesses who are suffering from these high wireless costs,” he said. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca

CRTC rules against Sugar Mobile in roaming dispute with Rogers

News | March 1, 2017

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CRTC rules against Sugar Mobile in roaming dispute with Rogers

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