OTTAWA – The CRTC has tweaked the disconnection practices between telecommunications service providers (TSPs) in an effort to mitigate the impact of potential disconnections on Canadian end-customers.
The Commission said Thursday that TSPs must, as a condition of offering and providing any telecommunications services, notify both it and end-customers at least four business days in advance of any disconnection of services by an underlying Canadian carrier or a non-carrier that the service provider relies on to provide services to end-customers.
In addition, TRP CRTC 2017-235 directed service providers to use the CRTC’s informal and formal dispute resolution services, as appropriate, to help them work together to avoid or minimize impacts on end-customers.
The revisions come as part of a 2016 proceeding that considered whether regulatory measures were required to prevent future occurrences of situations similar to a dispute between Toronto-area telecom Iristel Inc. and American VoIP provider netTALK that saw 27,000 Canadians temporarily lose their phone services.
