Telus wants two of the CRTC’s proposed new protections, 60 days’ notice before your plan terms change and alerts as you approach your usage limit, to apply only to home internet, leaving wireless, TV and home phone customers out.
It’s another ask from the same CRTC filing in which Telus asked the regulator to override provincial consumer protection laws and to keep phone trial periods at 15 days. The CRTC is merging the Wireless Code, the Internet Code and the TV code into one consumer code, and its draft takes some rules that only cover home internet today and applies them to every service.
The first is notice of changes after your initial contract term ends. The CRTC’s draft, borrowing from the Internet Code, says a provider can change a key term, such as your monthly price, only after giving at least 60 calendar days’ notice. That notice has to explain the change, when it takes effect, and your right to a free updated contract. The Wireless Code has no equivalent rule for after the commitment period, and Telus’ own mobility service terms say that when notice is required, it will give at least 30 days’ written notice of changes, including to rates.
Telus’ edits add “For Internet services” to the front of that rule. In its filing, Telus objects that the draft “imposes a 60-day notification period for contractual changes after the initial commitment period for wireless, television and telephone services, absent any data indicating that the current notification regime in relation to contractual changes for these services is insufficient.”
That matters for anyone who stays on a phone plan after their contract ends. Telus raised prices on legacy month-to-month plans twice this year, and an extra month of warning would give you more time to shop around before a higher bill lands.
The second rule is usage alerts. The draft would require providers to notify you when you hit 75% and 90% of your usage limit in a billing cycle, and again at 100%. That’s an Internet Code rule today. On wireless, the code currently requires roaming alerts and a $50 cap on data overage charges, but no alerts as you work through your domestic data.
Telus’ edits label the alert section “for Internet services only.” It points to a 2017 CRTC finding that the wireless market “had already implemented appropriate solutions” for telling customers about their data usage. If the CRTC agrees, wireless usage alerts would stay voluntary.
Even for home internet, Telus wants to trim the 100% alert. The draft says providers must notify both the account holder and the “device user” where relevant. Telus would drop the device user, arguing that in a home full of TVs, computers and smart speakers, “notifying individual device users is technically impracticable and adds no consumer benefit.” Fair enough, since nobody needs their smart speaker announcing the household is out of data.
Telus also says changing notification systems takes time and money, and it wants carriers to get at least a year after the CRTC’s decision to roll out whatever new rules come out of this.
The CRTC hasn’t decided anything yet, and its public hearing on the new code starts November 30 in Gatineau.
Would 60 days’ notice of a price change make you more likely to switch carriers?
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