Bell says CRTC should leave dispute with competitive pay-telephone service provider to the courts

BCE Inc. is arguing to the CRTC that it has correctly implemented a 2019 decision which stipulated that the incumbent must pay an Ontario-based pay-telephone owner and competitive pay-telephone service provider (CPTSP) $0.25 per toll-free call made over Bell Canada-provided business lines to support retail pay telephone service, and therefore, it does not owe any more money. Bell also claimed that it has ceased to pay SDI Telecom - the only and last CPTSP in Ontario – for disputed amounts of money “because they are associated with illegitimate toll-free calls.” Bell made the comments in a Dec. 6 intervention to the commission after SDI filed a Part 1 with the CRTC in August requesting that it order Bell and other telecom carriers (such as Rogers Communications Inc.) to pay for providing toll-free services using regular business lines. SDI argued that the incumbent is trying to push out the competition. SDI also requested that the commission implement “a flat rate compensation for toll free calls using SDI pay telephone from any type of line (SIM card, VOIP, Landline) from any telecom carrier." As of Nov. 30, Rogers is indebted to SDI for $84,123.81 in unpaid invoices and Bell owes $236,681.92, according to SDI Telecom general manager, Richard Seni’s, Dec. 6 intervention. Seni noted that the invoices were submitted in confidentiality to the commission, but added that they include a four per cent late fee charge which “was never contested” by Bell or Rogers during the past ten years. “The financial dispute between Bell and SDI is two-fold. First, it stems from the fact that SDI has never accepted that Bell has correctly implemented (the decision) – SDI therefore mistakenly insists that it is owed money,” Bell wrote in its intervention. Bell argued that the 2019 CRTC decision established that SDI is entitled to a $0.80 fee per call when the pay telephone uses a pay telephone access line (PAL) for its network access line and a $0.25 per call fee when it uses a regular business line for its network access line. Bell said it calculated at the time that SDI in fact owed the incumbent $13,635, before taxes, because it had been paying SDI $0.80 per call for the latter fee. SDI then filed a dispute with commission staff because it disagreed with Bell’s conclusion, and then later a review and vary application, filed in March 2020, to the 2019 decision. In April 2020, the commission dismissed the concerns of the review and vary application claiming that SDI had not explained the decision was incorrect. “The current application does not describe, or even list, the mistakes Bell has allegedly made in its implementation of (the decision),” Bell wrote in its current intervention. “SDI has twice already unsuccessfully alleged that Bell had incorrectly implemented (the decision)... The matter has been conclusively decided. The application is, inappropriately, trying to re-argue a two-year old matter that is settled.” Rogers, in its own Dec. 6 intervention, made similar arguments to the CRTC by claiming that SDI refuses to provide Rogers with the ability to validate the toll-free statistics and line type used by SDI to generate its invoices. “Rogers also asks the commission to deny SDI’s request for flat rate per payphone TF call compensation – a proposal that is unsupported by any evidence or argument on how a just and reasonable flat rate charge might be established – and is not possible anyway without a broad-based public consultation,” the incumbent wrote in its intervention. Bell also noted that it filed a Part 1 with the commission, on Sept. 4, 2020, against SDI “in light of strong evidence of illegitimate toll-free calls being made over SDI pay telephone,” requesting that it be allowed to withheld payment. “We provided extensive evidence regarding the highly regular calling patterns of toll-free calls from SDI pay telephones; video surveillance of SDI pay telephones showing that we were billed for hundreds of toll-free calls while there was no one in the pay telephone placing them and reminded the commission that SDI had engaged in this type of behavior in the past,” Bell noted in its current intervention, referencing its Sept. 2020 Part 1. The CRTC ruled on Bell’s Part 1 that the matters would best be determined through the judicial system, and both parties ended up in the Ontario Small Claims Court. Bell said the matter has yet to be resolved because it “intends to commence a counterclaim against SDI” for the alleged overpayments and illegitimate toll-free calls. Both claims are expected to proceed to a joint settlement conference in 2022 and, if the parties are unable to settle, a joint trial thereafter. “The determination of the legitimacy of certain calls and whether SDI should be compensated for them is currently before the courts. It would be duplicative, as well as be a confusing precedent, for the Commission to reverse course and seize itself of the matter,” Bell wrote in the intervention. — Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Bell says CRTC should leave dispute with competitive pay-telephone service provider to the courts

News | December 7, 2021

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Bell says CRTC should leave dispute with competitive pay-telephone service provider to the courts

News | December 7, 2021

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