Telecom Commission Letter addressed to Mr. Leonard D. Eichel

Ottawa, 4 March 2020

BY EMAIL

Mr. Leonard D. Eichel
Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs, Telecom
Place Ville Marie, bureau 1700
Montréal (Québec) H3B 0B3
telecom.regulatory@cogeco.com

RE: Extension of time in Decision 2018-357, requiring Cable Carriers to implement, at a minimum, next day batch reporting

Dear Mr. Eichel:

In Decision 2018-357^Footnote1 the Commission made determinations on Non-consensus report 1540RE04 – Status of TPIA Installation Orders and Trouble Tickets and the related Process Guidelines for TPIA^Footnote2 Service Orders and Trouble Tickets, Version 1 (only available in English) [the Guideline]. The Commission’s decision included:

A request to the CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) to update the Guideline to reflect the determinations set out in Decision 2018-357 and to publish the final Guideline within 90 days of the date of Decision 2018-357; and,
A determination that Bragg Communications Inc., carrying on business as Eastlink (“Eastlink”), Cogeco Communications Inc. (Cogeco), Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Rogers), Shaw Cablesystems G.P. (Shaw) and Vidéotron Ltd. (Vidéotron) (collectively referred to as the Cable Carriers) were to implement, at a minimum, next day batch reporting and to report to the Commission within six months of the publication of the final Guideline on:

The state of progress in implementing, at a minimum, next day batch reporting;

Any technical or economic constraints to providing TPIA customers with same day or near real-time batch reporting, including supporting rationale and a timeline for when same day or near real-time batch reporting can be provided to TPIA customers; and

The state of progress in implementing the consensus items proposed in the Guideline.

The final Guideline was published on 20 February 2019, resulting in the Cable Carriers being required to report to the Commission by 20 August 2019.
The Commission has received progress reports from the Cable Carriers Eastlink, Shaw, Rogers, and Vidéotron which state they have all implemented, at minimum, next day batch reporting.

On 11 October, 2019, Cogeco provided progress updates on implementing the consensus items in the Guideline and informed the Commission that it required more time to file its progress reports regarding implementing, at a minimum, next day batch reporting or implementing same day or near real-time batch reporting as it was evaluating the solutions. Cogeco indicated that it expects to be in a position to implement one of the two solutions by the end of March 2020.

On 10 December, 2019, Commission staff issued requests for information (RFI) to Cogeco regarding its outstanding progress reports required from Decision 2018-357.

On 13 January 2020, Cogeco provided responses to Commission staff RFIs.

Cogeco identified four^Footnote3 technical constraints related to providing TPIA customers with same day, or near real-time status on orders.

Regarding Cogeco’s implementation of, at minimum, next day batch reporting, Cogeco submitted that a transformation project that began in April 2018 to replace legacy systems related to provisioning and billing systems, resulted in numerous issues affecting customer experience for all of Cogeco’s customers. Cogeco enacted an embargo as part of a normal project management process designed to focus effort on fixing all outstanding issues and stabilizing the new platform. Cogeco submitted, notwithstanding these exceptional circumstances, that a next day batch reporting solution will be implemented at the end of March 2020.

Having regard for Cogeco’s unforeseen implementation issues, the Commission considers that an extension of time to implement, at a minimum, next day batch reporting, is reasonable.

Accordingly, the date for Cogeco to implement, at minimum, next day batch reporting as set out in Decision 2018-357 is revised to 31 March 2020.

Sincerely,

Original signed by

Claude Doucet
Secretary General

c.c.: Matthew Alexander, CRTC matthew.alexander@crtc.gc.ca
William Lloyd, CRTC william.lloyd@crtc.gc.ca

Distribution list:
bergeron.alain@oricom.ca, Matthew.Alexander@crtc.gc.ca, andrea.heller@sasktel.com, akaplanmyrth@teksavvy.ca, anne.mcmillan@distributel.ca, Barry.Choi@rci.rogers.com, bianca.sgambetterra@cogeco.com, Charles.Pronovost@videotron.com, chris.kellett@eswg9-1-1.ca, dmckeown@viewcom.ca, David.Watt@rci.rogers.com, regaffairs@quebecor.com, ddolan@teksavvy.ca, Diane.Gilbert@rci.rogers.com, don.grant@distributel.ca, Dorothea.Schramm@rci.rogers.com, Erich.Baumgartner@rci.rogers.com, edelduca@comwave.net, esther.snow@sjrb.ca, Graham.LeGeyt@sjrb.ca, Jocelyn.Kearney@sjrb.ca, martha.facey@execulink.com, Leonard.Eichel@cogeco.com, Marielle.Wilson@corp.eastlink.ca, Martin.PerreaultING@videotron.com, Michelle.Dupuis@telus.com, pmisur@teksavvy.ca, patrick.desy@quebecor.com, palang@shaw.ca, rocca@start.ca, robm@clearcable.ca, rob.olenick@tbaytel.com, sam.glazer@sympatico.ca, Serena.Xie@rci.rogers.com, Simon-Pierre.Olivier@fidomobile.ca, steve.hardy@videotron.com, Thomas.Grasham@rci.rogers.com, dmackwood@teksavvy.ca, Nathan.Jarrett@rci.rogers.com, catherine.latter@sjrb.ca, KMitchell@teksavvy.ca, Gerry.Thompson@rci.rogers.com, cjpcopeland@tacitlaw.com

Footnotes

Footnote 1

CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee – Non-consensus report 1540RE04 on the status of third-party Internet access installation orders and trouble tickets, and related process guidelines, Telecom Decision CRTC 2018-357, 7 September 20189

Return to footnote 1 referrer

Footnote 2

The wholesale HSA services offered by the Cable carriers are commonly referred to as “third-party Internet access (TPIA) services

Return to footnote 2 referrer

Footnote 3

The identified technical constraints were: (i) Providing the capability for a single ISP to obtain the status of its orders, without having access to the order status of both Cogeco residential customers, and other TPIA customers; (ii.) The requirement to join data from several systems (technician work order management, provisioning, etc.) to provide TPIA customers with an accurate status on their orders; (iii.) The maintenance of mandated service levels during any migration from the current system to a new system; and (iv.) Choosing a viable portal accessible to TPIA customers from outside the Cogeco IT domain that will have the appropriate data ‘hooks’ into Cogeco’s internal systems.

Return to footnote 3 referrer

Date modified:: 2020-03-04

Language selection

Search and menus

Search

Telecom Commission Letter addressed to Mr. Leonard D. Eichel