By Ahmad Hathout
Internet service provider Uplink is asking the CRTC to stop Frontier from continuing to disconnect its customers over a pay dispute until it can migrate them to a new provider.
While it disputes the amount, Aylmer, Ontario-based Uplink acknowledges in its Part 1 application, made public Friday, that it does owe some amount of money to its Etobicoke-based wholesale internet provider Frontier, which supplies capacity leased from Rogers and Eastlink. Uplink says it is “prepared to discuss a reasonable interim payment arrangement while the migrations are completed,” including by direction from the CRTC.
In the meantime, Uplink is asking for 30 days from the date of an interim determination of the CRTC or until migration of all customers is completed, whichever occurs first. It is also asking the CRTC to force Frontier to restore the suspended or disconnected circuits where the customer is in active migration and to provide advance written notice before further suspension or termination during the interim period.
After that, Uplink is asking, among other things, for the CRTC to determine the extent to which Frontier may suspend or terminate wholesale services for non-payment and what notice and customer-protection measures apply.
Right now, though, Uplink claims Frontier’s move to disconnect circuits is “disrupting or threatens to disrupt active end users before migration is complete.”
Uplink draws on previous CRTC decisions to support its request. In 2018, the regulator forced Eastlink to continue processing Frontier’s internet activations until the CRTC made a final determination on whether the wholesaler could resell the capacity to other providers. Uplink also notes that the CRTC last year ordered Bell to stop disconnecting Iristel customers while the latter made payments to the former.
“The Commission stated that it takes seriously the impact of wholesale disconnection on customers and encouraged a reasonable payment plan to avoid disconnection and limit customer impacts,” Uplink says in its application. “UpLink requests a similarly practical interim solution, but only for the short, defined migration period requested here.”
Frontier also provides voice services (VoIP) to Uplink, which is asking the CRTC to ensure that those services are not leveraged during the dispute period. “Uplink therefore asks that Frontier be prohibited from rejecting, delaying, withholding or interfering with otherwise-valid number ports solely as leverage in the financial dispute.”
Frontier did not respond to a request for comment.
