Charges for paper bills justified, providers say

Canadian consumers need incentives to make the switch to environmentally friendly electronic bills, SaskTel said in response to CRTC questions about telcos' charges for paper billing. SaskTel, a provincial Crown corporation that offers wireless, landline and IPTV services, said in regulatory documents filed with the commission last week that it has not adopted the industry trend of charging consumers to receive paper copies of their monthly bills. The result, the company said, is that many customers aren’t getting rid of paper invoices, despite the ease and availability of electronic billing and its environmental benefits. “SaskTel has seen that absent an incentive, such as a direct charge for paper bills, few customers take the opportunity to avail themselves of electronic billing,” Robert Hersche, SaskTel’s senior director of regulatory affairs, said in a July 17 letter to the commission. “This is more as a result of inertia than denial of the benefits inherent in an electronic billing system.” Earlier this month, the CRTC, which has emphasized the interests of consumers under Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais, asked telecom providers to answer questions about how they charge subscribers who elect to receive monthly paper bills, and what discounts they provide to customers who move to all-electronic billing. The responses to the regulator, due last Friday, show that most providers no longer offer free paper invoices. BCE Inc., Bell Aliant Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., and Telus Corp. each charge the majority of their customers $2 per month to receive paper bills, with exceptions for subscribers who don’t have Internet access and for the visually impaired. Videotron (a Quebecor Media Inc. subsidiary) charges its wireless customers $3 per month to receive detailed logs of their call records, while Shaw Communications Inc. offers some satellite TV subscribers a $4 monthly discount to switch to electronic billing. Each of the companies cited environmental concerns—as well as corporate costs—as a driving factor behind their decision to charge consumers those fees. Rogers said in a June 28 letter to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), which was included in its CRTC submission, that it saved 992,000 kilograms of paper last year by encouraging customers to use electronic bills. It said online billing also gives subscribers better access to detailed billing records, while reducing clutter. The companies added that few customers have complained about the charges for paper billing. SaskTel did not say how many of its subscribers have switched to electronic-only billing. Globalive Wireless Management Corp., which charges postpaid subscribers of its Wind Mobile wireless brand $4 a month to receive a paper bill, said in its CRTC filing that approximately 0.006 per cent of Wind’s customers elect to receive a paper bill. Globalive said it based its decision to charge customers on “worldwide best practices, costs, environmental impact, operational efficiency, customer experience, convenience for the customer, and the ability to provide real time information.” Subscribers, the company said, also benefit from lower prices as a result of the company’s reduced costs. “If we were to provide paper bills for free to all eligible (postpaid) customers it would cost many millions of dollars,” the company said. “hese savings are now passed to all of our customers.” — With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Charges for paper bills justified, providers say

Broadcast | July 23, 2013

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Charges for paper bills justified, providers say

Broadcast | July 23, 2013

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