Iristel asks CRTC to penalize Northwestel for disconnection in billing dispute

Iristel Inc. wants the CRTC to penalize BCE Inc.’s Northwestel for disconnecting all of the voice telecommunications services it gets from the northern incumbent for nearly 24 hours as part of a billing dispute between the two companies. In a Part 1 application filed with the CRTC Aug. 23 and made public Aug. 26, Iristel alleges that Northwestel demanded it sign a deferred payment agreement to stop it from disconnecting Iristel’s service, but then cut it anyway after receiving Iristel’s signed copy. It is part of a dispute over several invoices issued by Northwestel, with Iristel withholding certain payments and alleging it was not getting all of the services it wanted from the company. Northwestel sent its 30-day disconnection notice a day after the CRTC told Iristel in a decision in June it should pay the outstanding invoice amounts to the company or attempt to make alternative payment arrangements with it, Iristel said. Iristel said it was negotiating with Northwestel to come up with such arrangements, though it disagreed with the amounts it was billed by the company. At the end of 30 days, while negotiations were ongoing, Northwestel gave it five-days’ notice of disconnection, Iristel alleges, after which disconnection would occur if the parties did not reach an agreement. On the last day, “despite the parties making good progress in negotiations,” Iristel said, Northwestel proposed a payment agreement and demanded it be signed no later than noon the next day, or else face disconnection. But Iristel said the terms of the agreement wrongly included its affiliated mobile wireless carrier, Ice Wireless, even though Ice is not involved in the dispute. The company says after flagging that issue, Northwestel told it to send back a signed copy with the edits made to remove references to Ice Wireless, as well as add any further comments. Iristel says it was given 15 minutes to make the changes and sign before its service would be disconnected. It signed within less than an hour, sent back the edited version, and allegedly got a response acknowledging it was received. Iristel says it assumed at that point that the signed agreement was accepted by Northwestel and its service wouldn’t be disconnected, but Northwestel allegedly followed up with a new payment plan incorporating Iristel’s edits and demanding it be signed no later than 2 p.m. But because Iristel assumed the matter was already handled after it sent back the edited agreement, the relevant people did not see the email in time to respond by the next deadline “arbitrarily” imposed by Northwestel, Iristel alleged. At 2:01 p.m., its service was disconnected. At 7 a.m. the next day, Bell Canada counsel reached out to Iristel with an agreement with an updated date for acceptance, Iristel states in its application. Bell allegedly said if the agreement was signed and requisite payment was made, services would be restored by Northwestel. Later that morning, after signing, Iristel’s service was reconnected. “Iristel emphasizes that it signed under protest and it continues to contest the validity of the amounts claimed by Northwestel…," Iristel said. Iristel also alleges the agreement included late payment charges, which it does not believe should be part of it because the company is “validly disputing” several charges. It claims Northwestel violated its general tariff by including late fees, because it states “no charge disputed by a customer can be considered past due unless the company has reasonable grounds for believing that the purpose of the dispute is to evade or delay payment.” “Iristel has been disputing the charges issued by Northwestel on the basis that Northwestel is violating its tariff for local network interconnection. This is a valid dispute that is the subject of ongoing litigation between Northwestel and Iristel and an application before the commission,” Iristel said. Iristel is asking the commission to find that Northwestel was not allowed to disconnect its services because the two sides had agreed to deferred payments. It also asks the regulator to find that Northwestel was not allowed to unilaterally disconnect shared cost interconnection facilities because of the billing dispute, and that it was not allowed to impose late payment charges on Iristel. Iristel wants the CRTC to impose an administrative monetary penalty on Northwestel, alleging breaches of its tariff and the Telecommunications Act. A Northwestel spokesperson told The Wire Report that it was acting in compliance with the CRTC’s June decision to tell Iristel to pay the outstanding amounts or come up with an alternative arrangement while it disconnected Iristel’s services. “The disconnection was a last resort after we exhausted other reasonable avenues. Northwestel was compliant with our legal obligations related to the disconnection. On Aug. 8, Iristel and Northwestel reached an agreement, and Iristel’s services with Northwestel were reconnected,” they said. - Reporting by Hannah Daley at hdaley@thewirereport.ca

Iristel asks CRTC to penalize Northwestel for disconnection in billing dispute

News | | August 26, 2024

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Iristel asks CRTC to penalize Northwestel for disconnection in billing dispute

News | | August 26, 2024

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