OTTAWA — Consumers who want to sign up for CraveTV or shomi without first being Bell or Rogers/Shaw customers could be the potential beneficiaries of applications filed with the CRTC on Friday by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Consumers’ Association of Canada (CAC).
PIAC-CAC submitted two applications to the CRTC, challenging the tied selling of the two online streaming services linked to the consumption of the service providers’ other telecom or broadcasting services.
In the application regarding CraveTV, PIAC-CAC are challenging whether Bell can restrict access to its subscription video-on-demand service to customers who already have a TV subscription. In the other application, PIAC-CAC have challenged whether Rogers and Shaw can lawfully tie access to their joint-venture shomi streaming service to consumption of a Rogers or Shaw Internet or TV subscription.
“The tied selling of streaming services, designed to favour legacy business models and to discriminate against customers who wish to only view programming through an Internet service provider of their choice, is something PIAC-CAC believe cannot be supported in the current rules, nor by Canada’s broadcasting policy objectives,” said Geoffrey White, counsel to PIAC-CAC, in a statement posted on PIAC’s website.
“We are hoping to preserve an open Internet, and have the CRTC tell large telecom and broadcasting conglomerates that they should not be allowed to abuse regulatory distinctions at the expense of Canadians,” said John Lawford, executive director and general counsel for PIAC, in the same posted statement.
Copies of PIAC-CAC’s two applications to the CRTC are available at the following links:
PIAC-CAC Part 1 – CraveTV – Application
PIAC-CAC PART I – SHOMI – Application
