OTTAWA – Three of the nation’s incumbent telcos are going to the Federal Court of Appeal saying the CRTC’s win-back rule violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Bell Canada, SaskTel and Telus today officially applied to the Federal Court of Appeal challenging the "win-back rule" imposed on them by the CRTC, saying it violates their freedom of expression.
The Commission likely knew this was coming since, as reported here by www.cartt.ca, the companies had already filed that complaint with the Commission, only to be told it would be rolled into the local forbearance hearings beginning in the fall.
“As a result of CRTC rules, Canada’s established telecom companies are precluded from communicating with former residential customers about any service – including non-regulated long distance, Internet and even broadcast services – for one full year after the customer has switched service providers,” outlines the press release.
The companies are also prevented from communicating with former business customers about local exchange service for three months after they have switched providers.
"By imposing these marketing restrictions, the CRTC has pushed well beyond its jurisdiction to the point where it’s infringing on our constitutional rights to communicate freely and openly with consumers," said Lawson Hunter, executive vice-president and chief corporate officer, BCE and Bell Canada. "As a result, consumers and businesses are also denied the freedom to make informed choices about their telecom services, something fundamental to a competitive market."
The CRTC instituted the tough win-back rules after receiving a number of complaints from local telephony newcomers. The complainants said that the incumbents were not playing fair since they were offering customers who had left to join a newcomer hard-to-resist inducements to return (cheap Internet, long distance and television service) that were not available to the rest of the ILEC’s customers.
In effect, say the new telecom players in Canada, the ILECs brought the win-back rules (which were once set at 90 days but lengthened to a year after complaints) on themselves.
Arguing the restrictions have evolved into a sweeping "no contact rule" in violation of the Charter, the application follows the CRTC’s recent decision to extend the restriction to the emerging market for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services. The application seeks leave to appeal the portion of that decision which reaffirms and extends the rule, adds the Bell/Telus/Sasktel release.
"Extending the no contact rule makes a bad situation for consumers even worse," added Janet Yale, executive vice-president of corporate affairs at Telus. "The CRTC has gone too far. There is absolutely no justification for applying the win-back rule in an increasingly competitive communications market that includes established cable companies and many other players, such as foreign resellers."
By extending the "win-back rule" to non-regulated telecom services such as long distance and now non-telecom services such as Internet and SaskTel’s Max service (digital television over DSL), the CRTC is actually interfering in fully competitive markets, it continues.
"This unacknowledged regulation of long distance, Internet and even broadcast services puts consumers at a serious disadvantage," concluded John Meldrum, vice-president, corporate counsel and regulatory affairs at SaskTel. "Consumers should be free to make informed choices about telecom and broadcast services which are such a significant part of their daily lives."
“The joint application to the Federal Court of Appeal is an important step in efforts by the companies to remove barriers that deny choice to Canadians. The companies also plan on asking the federal Cabinet to overturn the CRTC’s May 12th VoIP ruling,” concludes the release.
The companies have 90 days from the date of the decision to do that.
