Internet code will make it too hard to cut off non-payers: Xplornet

The forthcoming Internet code from the CRTC would make it far too hard for Xplornet Communications Inc. to disconnect customers that haven’t paid, the company argues in a filing to the regulator from October 29. In the filing for “review and variance” of the CRTC’s new Internet code, Xplornet asks the regulator to go back to older language of the proposed code. The old language says that a service provider can disconnect a customer for non-payment if the customer “fails to pay an account that is past due, provided it exceeds $50 or has been past due for more than two months.” The updated language of the code, due to come into force January 31st, changes the “or” in that condition to “and,” meaning a customer has to be both in arrears of more than $50 and must also be more than two months in arrears before they can be disconnected, which Xplornet calls the “cumulative standard.” In the filing, it says the CRTC is wrong because the “proceeding record lacked sufficient information for the Commission to assess the appropriateness of adopting the Cumulative Standard in light of the objectives” of the 2006 and 2019 policy directives, and goes on to estimate that its debt expenses would increase 50 per cent if the new disconnection stipulation comes into force. “This is a material increase in costs for our business, with no corresponding benefit to the consumer,” the company writes. Xplornet says in the filing that it is “not aware of any complaints being placed on the record of this proceeding relating to the disconnection practices of service providers for non-payment.” As such, Xplornet writes later in the filing, “hypothetical regulation that addresses no demonstrable problem is not efficient and is inherently disproportionate to its purpose,” which runs counter to several sections of the 2006 CRTC policy direction. The company also says the new language in the Internet code creates new costs for ISPs, and therefore ISPs would raise their prices, working against the 2019 policy directive’s mandate to create policy that lowers consumer price. “Because the Cumulative Standard unnecessarily imposes costs on service providers,” Xplornet writes, “the adoption of the Cumulative Standard hinders service providers in their work to provide affordable services to consumers, serving to raise the cost of Internet services for Canadians.” In their own review and vary requests, the country’s largest internet service providers are asking for the code to be extended to smaller ISPs scheduled to be exempt from the code.

Internet code will make it too hard to cut off non-payers: Xplornet

Brief | November 12, 2019

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Internet code will make it too hard to cut off non-payers: Xplornet

Brief | November 12, 2019

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