By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – In May, Eastlink challenged CRTC Telecom Order 2020-660 issued in February where the Commission denied a request from Eastlink to impose customer credit limits that would help Eastlink mitigate delinquent third party internet access customers.
The Halifax-based company filed the application requesting the CRTC review and vary the decision, in light of the pandemic and the financial situation the crisis has created.
After requests for information and procedural requests, the final deadline to file intervention was pushed back to July 24.
In interventions, Shaw and Videotron agreed with Eastlink saying the Commission was wrong in denying the possibility of imposing credit limits to its customers and indicated they would like to be able to make that change themselves.
“The Commission mischaracterized credit limits as a remedy for delinquent payments, when their actual purpose, as illustrated by the evidence submitted by Eastlink, is to protect the creditor against risk of loss. This factual error led the Commission to conclude that credit limits are not necessary or warranted given other means of redressing the harm to Eastlink associated with late payments,” Shaw’s intervention reads.
TPIA provider TekSavvy’s position is diametrically opposed, saying it and “all wholesale-based competitors have already been subjected to paying wholesale providers’ unjust and unreasonable wholesale access rates for years. And now, in addition to the stay being granted by the Federal Court of Appeals for the wholesale final rates, all parties are faced with a challenging economic environment during this global pandemic. The addition of any financial measures, including credit limits, that have the effect of preventing wholesale-based competitors from growing their business would be harmful to wholesale-based competitors and to competition in the retail market,” argues the company’s submission.
CNOC goes further: “While Eastlink has been extremely vague about its proposal, it seems that it is suggesting that it may seek to effectively have TPIA customers pay the equivalent of two months of (monthly recurring charges) in advance through a combination of credit limits, and subject to its tariff, deposits. This is wholly unacceptable and would result in TPIA customers lending their own money to Eastlink interest free or virtually interest free; they would be subsidizing their competitor.”
City Wide, an TPIA provider from Dartmouth, N.S., said it has always paid Eastlink fully and on time.
“Even if such non-payment issues had existed, the pandemic is an inherently temporary situation that will pass, and it is inappropriate to create a permanent policy change based on an extraordinarily rare event,” reads its submission.
When Eastlink made the first proposal for credit limits, it was pre-pandemic.
Eastlink has until July 31 to reply.
