Telecom - Commission Letter addressed to Philippe Gauvin (Bell MTS Inc.)

Ottawa, 2 June 2022

Our reference: 8000-C12-201909780 Footnote1

BY EMAIL

Philippe Gauvin
Assistant General Counsel
Bell MTS Inc.
19th Floor – 160 Elgin street
Ottawa, ON K2P 2C4
bell.regulatory@bell.ca

Subject: Quality of service issues impacting Bell MTS’s landline telephone service in the Winnipeg area

Dear Philippe Gauvin,

The Commission is in receipt of Bell Canada’s 20 May 2022 responses to Commission staff’s requests for information regarding quality of service issues in the Winnipeg area of Manitoba. Commission staff appreciates the details provided by Bell MTS to better understand the issues impacting the provision of reliable telecommunications services and the company’s efforts in resolving these issues. However, given the ongoing nature of the issues, Bell MTS is required by Commission staff to continue to provide the following data on a monthly basis for May 2022 to October 2022, inclusive:

  1. Provide a list of all outages that affected Bell MTS’s landline telephone services within the Winnipeg area, which lasted four or more hours and affected five or more households. For each, specify the location, number of customers affected, duration, cause of the outage, and relevant dates.
  2. Provide a list of the total number of Bell MTS residential customers within the Winnipeg area who experienced landline telephone service interruptions of a) 24 hours or more, b) 48 hours or more, c) 72 hours or more, d) 168 hours or more, e) 720 hours or more, and f) 1440 hours or more.
  3. Provide the number of complaints received by Bell MTS from its customers within the Winnipeg area, and indicate what has been communicated to clients experiencing serious and persistent quality of service issues, including any commitments made, and including the number of service technician appointments dispatched, in order to resolve the identified service issues.
  4. For each customer that experienced or is experiencing an outage of 168 hours or more, indicate i) the details of what caused the outage and the steps to resolve it, ii) how the company is addressing the telecommunications needs of the customer during the outage, including access to essential services such as 9-1-1, and 3) when the outage is expected to be resolved.

Process

The information requested above is to be filed by the second Monday of each month for the previous month’s data, with the next report for the month of May 2022 being due on June 13. Where the second Monday falls on a statutory holiday, the information should be filed on the following day.

To the extent that information is submitted in confidence pursuant to section 39 of the Telecommunications Act, an abridged version of all submissions must be provided for the public record. A copy of this letter and all related correspondence will be added to the public record.

Sincerely,

Original signed by

Fiona Gilfillan
Executive Director
Telecommunications Sector

c.c.:  Mirko Bibic, President and CEO, BCE Inc., mirko.bibic@bell.ca
Michel Murray, CRTC, michel.murray@crtc.gc.ca

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