Small ISPs say cablecos ‘unduly discriminating’ against them

Canada’s small Internet service providers (ISPs) are asking the telecom regulator to impose extra costs on incumbent cablecos that offer wholesale Internet, said Ken Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs at Rogers Communications Inc. “They want to load a lot of extra costs onto us, but do they want to pay for those extra costs?” Engelhart said of the small ISPs, which filed a CRTC application asking the CRTC to impose new obligations on the cablecos. “It seems they want platinum service for a bronze price. I don’t know if that’s really fair.” In an application filed with the CRTC on Friday, the Canadian Network Operators Consortium (CNOC) said Canada’s large cablecos are “unduly discriminating” against small ISPs that lease access to the cablecos’ networks in order to offer their own retail Internet services. The application—which identifies Rogers, Cogeco Cable Inc., Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Media Inc. subsidiary Videotron Ltd.—said the cablecos provide “vastly inferior” services to the small ISPs in contrast to services for their own retail customers, which “unfairly affects” the reputation of the small ISPs. The application said the large cablecos delay the small ISPs’ requests to start offering services in new markets, unfairly delay fixes for network problems affecting the small ISPs’ customers, and use the delays to try to win over those customers with promises of more reliable Internet service. One carrier’s request to start offering Internet services using Rogers’ network was delayed for two years, the application said, while another waited up to 20 days for Videotron to install new customer lines. In another case, a small ISP suffered a “chronic outage caused by Rogers” that kept its customers offline for 24 days, the application added. “The reality is that ISPs and their end-users face serious delays, service disruptions and other problems throughout the end-user access life-cycle,” the application said. “These types of issues can have a serious negative impact on the reputation of ISPs and competition itself—an outcome that is detrimental to consumers.” Engelhart said Rogers “disagrees completely’ with the CNOC application, as well as any suggestion that the company unfairly prioritizes its own retail customers at the small ISPs’ expense. Rogers, he said, responds to network issues the same way regardless of where the complaint comes from. The only difference between a complaint from a Rogers customer and one who subscribes to a small ISP that uses Rogers’ network, Engelhart added, is the “extra step” that could potentially slow the process down. “If you have a problem with your Internet service and you phone Rogers, then we schedule an appointment,” Engelhart said. “If you’re with a wholesaler, then you call the wholesaler and then they have to call Rogers and that introduces an extra step. That’s the only difference.” Marc Gaudrault, chief executive of small ISP TekSavvy Solutions Inc., said in a telephone interview Monday that his company is quick to report their customers’ network issues, though the cablecos are not always so quick to respond. In particular, Gaudrault pointed to his company’s experiences this summer, as upgrades to Rogers’ network resulted in Internet service disruptions for more than a thousand TekSavvy customers. In many cases, Gaudrault said, TekSavvy reported problems to Rogers and did not hear back for up to six days, leaving customers without service and TekSavvy without an explanation. “If a customer went offline we would not get a response back from for up to six days,” Gaudrault said. “Even simple things such as switching up a modem is taking weeks, which has led to some of our customers being offline for as long as a month at a time.” Engelhart said delays to repairing TekSavvy customers’ connections arise from repair forecasts TekSavvy provides each month. Those help determine how many technicians and other staff Rogers will have available to respond to network problems as they arise, he said, adding the TekSavvy forecasts were “wildly inaccurate” in August, leading to a staffing shortage at Rogers. The CNOC application asked the CRTC to order the cablecos to take steps to protect the small ISPs’ customers from network disruptions, respond faster to network issues when they arise, and provide the small ISPs with more information about how network issues are dealt with. The application also asks the commission to implement a regime to track the quality of service the cablecos provide to the small ISPs and their customers, and provide rebates to the small ISPs if specific service quality targets aren’t met. Engelhart said he is not concerned by the CNOC proposals, which called regulatory gaming. “I’m confident that when all the facts are put before the CRTC they will find that there’s no discrimination and that the service levels we’re giving to the ISPs is the same as we’re giving to our own customers,” he said. “These guys don’t really have a business,” he said of the small ISPs. “It’s just a server connected to a regulatory department. They just complain endlessly to the CRTC and this is another example of it.” Gaudrault said in an emailed statement Tuesday that he was equally confident in the CNOC application’s chances for success. “We pay the incumbents a lot of money for service and we simply want what we’re paying for,” he said. The CRTC posted the CNOC application on its website Monday. The deadline for comments is Oct. 30. —With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Small ISPs say cablecos ‘unduly discriminating’ against them

News | October 1, 2013

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