Telecom - Staff Letter addressed to Ruth Altman (Rogers)

Ottawa, 19 July 2024

Reference: 1011-NOC2016-0293

BY E-MAIL

Ruth Altman
Director, Regulatory Consumer Policy
Rogers
ruth.altman@rci.rogers.com

Subject: Request for information on current practices related to changes to the Telecommunications Act stemming from Budget 2024 – Prohibition of fees for the activation or modification of a service plan

Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024Footnote1 , received Royal Assent on 20 June 2024. Division 37 of the Bill relates to changes to the Telecommunications Act seeking to impose further consumer protection measures on telecommunication service providers (TSPs).

Through this Bill, the Telecommunications Act (the Act) has been amended to add the following:

27.04 (1) A telecommunications service provider must not charge a fee to a subscriber that is related to the activation or modification of a telecommunications service plan, or any other fee whose main purpose is, in the opinion of the Commission, to discourage subscribers from modifying their service plan or cancelling their contract for telecommunications services.

(2) The Commission must specify the types of fees for the purposes of subsection (1).

It appears that you recently increased your service set-up fee from $60 to $70 for customers who elect to not use self-serve mechanisms on Rogers.com or Fido.ca.

Please explain how this change would be consistent with the recent amendments to the Act by filing your response using GCKey by no later than 26 July 2024. Please ensure to address this for every brand you operate.

As set out in Procedures for filing confidential information and requesting its disclosure in Commission proceedings, Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin 2010-961, 23 December 2010, as amended, TSPs may designate certain information as confidential.

You must provide an abridged version of the document involved, accompanied by detailed rationale to explain why the disclosure of the information is not in the public interest.

All submissions are to be made in accordance with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Rules of Practice and Procedure, SOR/2010-277.

Responses to this request for information will be added to the record of any relevant proceeding the CRTC may launch.

Yours sincerely,

Original signed by

Scott Hutton
Chief, Consumer and Research

cc:
nanao.kachi@crtc.gc.ca
rwi_gr@rci.rogers.com

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