By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is admitting that it became aware of, but dealt with, a “small and isolated number” of “rogue” third-party representatives who were engaging on its behalf in the promotion of pirate IPTV services to get people to subscribe to its internet services.
In a statement of defense, filed Friday with the Ontario Superior Court and in response to an action commenced by Bell, the Vancouver-based telecom says it received a customer complaint in May about a representative who was promoting the illegal service.
“In accordance with TELUS’s standard escalation processes and before Bell commenced this action, TELUS immediately investigated and identified a small and isolated number of third-party representatives engaging in this activity,” Telus said in its defence. “TELUS worked with its vendor to discipline each rogue third-party agent involved, including through suspensions and terminations.
“TELUS also issued an urgent notice to all vendors and door-to-door sales representatives that TELUS had zero tolerance for the promotion of rogue services and any vendor, agent or sales representative who is found to be selling, recommending, or promoting non-TELUS products would face immediate termination.”
Bell filed a statement of claim late last month accusing Telus of purposely training and using door-to-door salespeople to pitch the unlicensed IPTV application to get customers to switch to Telus internet services, which uses Bell’s network. The Montreal-based telco claims it has suffered financially through the loss of customers and is seeking damages of up to $35 million.
“TELUS denies Bell’s vague and frivolous allegations that TELUS induced Bell’s customers to switch to TELUS by marketing or installing ‘Illegal Pirated TV Services,’” Telus said in its response. “At no point did TELUS authorize offers or sales for these third-party TV services. The idea that TELUS would resort to, or would need to resort to, illegal conduct to entice Bell’s customers to switch providers is outlandish and has no basis in fact.”
Telus argues that Bell fails to show that this was unlawful conduct on Telus’s part. It says the damages sought by Bell are “exaggerated, excessive, remote, not recoverable at law, and have not been mitigated by Bell.”
Telus claims Bell did not seek to address this issue with it before filing the action in court because this isn’t about that at all; rather, Telus claims it’s part of a multipronged effort to counter the fallout of the CRTC’s decision to force Bell’s network open to the largest telecommunications companies and allow Telus to compete against it in Ontario and Quebec.
“A permanent injunction restraining TELUS from ‘unlawfully’ inducing Bell customers and subscribers to switch from Bell services to TELUS services would directly contradict and frustrate the CRTC Mandate by blocking competition,” Telus claims. “Such an order would not only be contrary to the CRTC Mandate, but also the Competition Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-34 and the Telecommunications Act.”
Telus, however, is taking its retort a step further. It alleges in a $1-million anti-competitive counterclaim that Bell representatives, who must go into customer homes to install Telus internet services, “use aggressive, misleading sales tactics to induce customers to terminate their TELUS contracts and switch to Bell,” including via predatory pricing and claims that Telus is a just reseller that uses old equipment.
“Bell further disrupts TELUS’s ability to connects its customers by either failing to provide or providing incomplete installation services,” it further alleges. “This anti-competitive conduct is calculated to wrongly frustrate the CRTC’s decisions and forestall TELUS’s (and likely other competitors’) entry into the markets where Bell is an incumbent.”
Telus alleges that five per cent of failed customer installations are the result of Bell technicians not showing up to homes. It further alleges that the technicians are failing to follow “industry-standard procedure to test and confirm” that the customer has been properly connected to Bell’s network, resulting in “repeat visits,” delays and customers cancelling Telus services as a result.
“TELUS welcomes good faith competitive conduct,” the counterclaim reads. “Bell’s exploitation of its infrastructure dominance in this way is anything but.”
Bell did not respond to a request for comment.
Bell and Telus are currently duking it out in different fora on seperate issues. Last month, Bell alleged Telus is trying to unduly reconstitute its newly branded television services on Telus TV. And the month before that, Telus accused Bell of deliberately obstructing its ability to introduce its broadcasting services over the larger telco’s last-mile fibre facilities in eastern Canada.
Telus has been focused on expanding eastward. A cornerstone of that expansion is the bundling of services – internet, television, home security and/or mobile wireless services – using the CRTC’s wholesale internet policy.
In recent days, Telus has ramped up its public relations campaign to counter appeals of the CRTC’s wholesale decision.
