By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Operating a competitive pay telephone service provider (CPTSP) is difficult since it is, after all, a nickel-and-dime business.
AFX Communications is, or rather, was, such a company, providing competitive payphone services in certain regions in Quebec.
In May 2019, it filed an application with the CRTC claiming Bell stopped, since March 2019, paying the required $0.80 a call when the payphone was connected to a Bell business line. Bell said the tariff only applies to calls made over a pay telephone access line (PAL) and not to calls made on phones connected to business lines. Bell also admits it made those payments until March 2019 by mistake.
In its decision announced on December 2019, the CRTC decided compensation of $0.80 should be paid on calls made on a PAL line and $0.25 when made from a regular business line. The decision also indicated, if you read between the lines, the Commission doubted the future for CPTSPs.
AFX then launched a cabinet challenge to that CRTC decision.
Then just last month, Bell filed an application with the CRTC, claiming that AFX had invoiced it for illegitimate toll-free-calls.
In a letter posted to the Commission web site today, AFX told the CRTC it has decided to end the hostilities and walk away. The Covid crisis can not have been kind to payphone usage, however the one-page letter said, in French: “Bell in the last 20 years has been behaving like the Supreme Telecom Power, only doing as it pleases and only very partially conforms with CRTC decisions, knowing full well that a little business like us cannot afford paying the legal fees to get them to respect CRTC orders.”
“August 31, was the last day of business for AFX Communications, we give up and pull out, Bell will be able to restore its monopoly.”
