GATINEAU – Citing “serial abuse” by Shaw Communications, Telus has reiterated its demand for immediate interim relief from the CRTC over the Calgary-based cableco’s tactics when customers want to switch from Shaw Cable or Shaw Direct to Telus’ Optik TV.
It did so while lamenting the Regulator’s decision to extend and expand CRTC 2010-406, the call for comments on the customer transfer process and related competitive issues, the very thing Telus (and others) want solved. Now. As reported by Cartt.ca, the Commission (prodded by Rogers Communications) decided to extend the deadline for comments on the proceeding because it added wireless to the platforms under consideration.
Telus’ SVP Regulatory, Michael Hennessy, in July 23 letter, pronounced the company “deeply frustrated” that the CRTC saw fit to grant the extension without any interim relief concerning its specific complaints about Shaw.
The granted extension “is a complete about-face from the Commission staff determination issued last week denying such a broadening of the scope of the proceeding on the basis that this would ‘introduce an unacceptable amount of complexity and delay in the Commission’s determination on the matters raised in this proceeding’,” says the Telus letter. “As further noted in the Commission staff determination, ‘an expeditious resolution by the Commission, particularly as it relates to Shaw’s specific application before the Commission is required in light of the significant effects on competition and consumer choice’.”
Telus claims Shaw is not playing fair when customers want to quit their legacy cable TV provider in favour of Telus’ Optik TV.
Telus asked CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein directly for help on June 22, saying Shaw had been acting improperly for some time when it came to customers wanting to cut their cable and go with Telus TV. The complaint came after weeks of back and forth between Telus, Shaw and the Commission, according to the paperwork filed with the Regulator.
“Not only does Shaw appear to have arbitrary business rules providing different cancellations to different customers, Shaw is using the confidential and commercially sensitive information provided to it by Telus for improper purposes, including disparaging Telus services and creating customer confusion and uncertainty,” reads Hennessy’s letter to von Finckenstein.
“Telus requires your immediate assistance to implement an interim solution that will provide symmetry to the processes leveraged by Shaw in dealing with customer transfers from Telus with those Shaw unilaterally imposes for broadcast distribution.”
On numerous occasions, Shaw has also told Telus that it wants to hear from customers directly and that it won’t accept disconnect requests from the telco on behalf of customers.
According to Telus, when it informs Shaw about customers’ intentions to switch providers, Shaw uses the data to attempt to re-sign the customer and disparage Telus, and if that doesn’t work and they still want to switch, Shaw sometimes takes acts far too slowly on the disconnect requests, resulting in new Telus customers continuing to receive bills from Shaw.
“Telus finds itself in the unusual situation where it provides Shaw with customer information to cease billing for customers switching to our new broadcast distribution service and Shaw is clearly abusing such confidential information by, in effect, using it as a master calling list to contact Telus’ customers,” wrote Hennessy.
“This is diametrically opposed to the obligations imposed on local exchange carriers who transfer local and Internet customers through the local service request process, where specific rules enforced through industry agreements, are in place to protect confidential customer information exchanged by carriers.”
In response to all this, Shaw asked the Commission for a determination on what the rules should be, if any, when a customer wants to leave one TV provider for another, and the Telus complaint was rolled into BTNC 2010-406 Call for comments on the customer transfer process and related competitive issues.
Right now, there are two sets of rules for telco and TV customer switches. When it comes to a cable company acquiring a phone customer, the cableco can notify the incumbent telco that they are losing a customer and the disconnect is done via a carrier services group.
That process means the customer himself doesn’t have to tell the telco he is leaving and the CSG step ensures the customers’ information is protected from the company losing them so that sales reps can’t step in with a high pressure sales pitch and offer deep discounts or other incentives to stay.
In fact, Commission staff said in May Shaw can continue to go without CSG
“Commission staff’s opinion to allow Shaw to receive cancellations without the protection of a CSG, cements for the interim period the asymmetrical treatment of customer information undermining competition in television distribution and will encourage the further erosion of rules that have otherwise been effective both in telecommunications and broadcasting. As a result, all indications are that this process is being abused and manipulated to the fullest extent,” writes Hennessy.
No such CSG rules are in place when a TV customer is leaving a satellite or cable BDU for another. Bell has demanded regulatory symmetry in this area as well, asking the CRTC to either get rid of all rules on customer transfers, or subject cable to the same regulatory rules as telcos, when they are about to lose a legacy voice customer by setting out CSG’s for them as well.
