GATINEAU – The CRTC today told Ice Wireless that allowing its Sugar Mobile customers to roam constantly on the Rogers Wireless network violates its roaming agreement and that it has 50 days to stop.
As Cartt.ca has reported, Ice had applied to the CRTC for relief against Rogers Communications after the national operator told Ice more than a year ago it was violating their agreement – and it would be terminating that contract, along with roaming service to Sugar customers.
Ice Wireless operates a mobile network that includes coverage in the three Canadian Territories and some communities in Northern Quebec. Sugar Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that is an affiliated company of Ice Wireless and is hosted on Ice Wireless’ network. When outside the Ice network, Sugar customers’ handsets use Wi-Fi, or roam on the Rogers network.
However, Rogers said the two companies’ roaming deal contemplated only periodic, not constant, roaming on its network and today, the CRTC agreed. “Ice Wireless has improperly allowed the end-users of its mobile virtual network operator Sugar Mobile Inc. (Sugar Mobile) to obtain permanent, rather than incidental, access to RCCI’s cellular network,” reads today's decision.
However, since an abrupt disconnect would be disruptive to Sugar customers, the decision allows 50 days for Ice to “stop making unauthorized use” of Rogers’ network. If Ice doesn’t act, Rogers “may cease providing wholesale mobile wireless roaming service to Ice Wireless.”
(Some help, however, may be on the way, as the Commission also announced today its decision on the terms and conditions (but not the rates themselves) surrounding wholesale mobile wireless roaming service tariffs. We’ll have more on this as we study that decision.)
Sugar and Ice president and CEO Samer Bishay says its customers actually make very limited use of the Rogers network. “The Commission’s decision is a blow to competition in mobile telephony,” said Bishay in a release. “We’re disappointed, not only for our company, but for ordinary Canadians who pay some of the highest wireless phone rates in the world. I’m sure Rogers, Bell and Telus shareholders are delighted they can continue to charge such exorbitant rates.”
Sugar’s rates start at $19/month and the company has targeted customers down south, where it has no network. It says the brand has about 5,500 customers. “Our technology means customers are using Wi-Fi more than 90 per cent of the time and on the Rogers network less than 10 per cent,” added Bishay. “There are currently hundreds of thousands of Canadians permanently using U.S. phones in Canada and roaming on Rogers, Bell and Telus networks because it’s cheaper. That is the threat, not a made-in-Canada innovative solution like Sugar.”
Bishay has not yet decided on his next steps but that the company will communicate “directly with customers shortly and often.”
Rogers, of course has a far different point of view – that Sugar was in contravention of its contract.
“We’re pleased the CRTC made the right call,” said David Watt, Rogers’ SVP of regulatory affairs. “We believe in innovation and a fair, competitive market – this was about violating a roaming agreement, plain and simple.”
