2020-2021 Mid-Year Report

Executive Summary

About the Numbers

Complaints are up 6%
Almost 9 out of 10 complaints resolved (often within 30 days)
Customers raised more internet-related issues since the start of the COVID pandemic, such as poor service quality and complete loss of service.
Bell accounts for 20.3% of all complaints accepted, followed by Rogers at 13.2%, Fido at 10.3%, TELUS at 7.1% and Freedom Mobile at 6.5%.

About Our Activities

The CCTS issued two Decisions: the first was regarding Bell Canada failing to honour a “lifetime guaranteed” price on a package for multiple services, and the second was regarding Comwave blocking the porting of numbers, suspending services without consent, applying an Early Cancellation Fee and continuing to bill following suspension.
The CCTS terminated the participation of Cinco Telecom, Suntel Networks and Roam Mobility for no longer offering services that fall within the scope of the CCTS.

All comparisons are to Mid-Year Report 2019-20 unless otherwise specified.

9,121

Complaints accepted

8,541

Complaints concluded

88%

Complaints resolved

Confirmed Wireless Code breaches

Confirmed Television Service Provider Code breaches

Confirmed Internet Code breaches

Confirmed Deposit and Disconnection Code breach

Operational Statistics

Figure 1: Summary of key statistics

There were 9,121 complaints accepted, with 8,541 being concluded. Out of the concluded complaints, 7,526 were resolved, 1,011 were closed, 2 Recommendations were accepted and 2 Decisions were issued. 6,183 complaints were resolved at the pre-investigation level, 1,343 complaints were resolved at the investigation level. 456 complaints were closed at the pre-investigation level, 555 complaints were closed at the investigation level.

Complaints by Service Provider

Table 1: Top 5 Participating Services Providers by complaints accepted

wdt_ID	Participating Service Provider	Mid-Year Report 2020-21	Mid-Year Report 2019-20	Change
1	Bell	1,849	2,235	-17.3%
2	Rogers	1,201	969	23.9%
3	Fido	940	647	45.3%
4	TELUS	644	696	-7.5%
5	Freedom Mobile	596	585	1.9%

All statistics are as at February 1, 2021 and are subject to audit. See Appendix A for complaints accepted for all service providers.

Issues Raised in Complaints

Table 2: Number of issues by service^[1]

wdt_ID	Service	Issues	% of all issues	Change in number of issues
1	Wireless	8,477	41.0%	-19.5%
2	Internet	6,722	33.0%	6.2%
3	Local phone	2,663	13.0%	-17.5%
4	TV	2,358	12.0%	-31.7%
5	Other	240	1.0%	-21.1%
6	Total	20,460	100%	-14.2%

Table 3: Top 10 issues raised in complaints

wdt_ID	Issue	Wireless	Internet	TV	Local phone	Long distance	Total issues	% of all issues
1	Disclosure issues	1,346	691	350	261	14	2,662	13.0%
2	Incorrect charge	1,146	699	358	342	48	2,593	12.7%
3	Intermittent/Inadequate quality of service	596	1,250	214	248	11	2,319	11.3%
4	Breach of contract	726	493	130	140	8	1,497	7.3%
5	Credit/refund not received	441	395	123	111	5	1,075	5.3%
6	Amount and legitimacy of early termination fees	256	322	79	178	2	837	4.1%
7	Complete loss of service	166	319	65	164	9	723	3.5%
8	Credit reporting	360	172	90	47	5	674	3.3%
9	Unable to cancel	185	179	64	96	17	541	2.6%
10	Regular price increase of monthly price plans	78	217	112	102	7	516	2.5%

There were no issues raised regarding white page directories.

Table 4: Breakdown of disclosure issues

wdt_ID	Issue	Wireless	Internet	TV	Local phone	Long distance	Total issues	% of all issues
1	Contract conflicts with agreement	1,018	529	268	211	12	2,038	10.0%
2	Details of promotion not fully disclosed	188	97	47	31	2	365	1.8%
3	Service provider’s right to make unilateral changes	57	43	28	16	0	144	0.7%
4	Plan eligibility requirements not properly disclosed	39	12	2	3	0	56	0.3%
5	Changes requested during trial period not implemented	30	2	3	0	0	35	0.2%
6	Contract not provided in format requested (paper, electronic or accessible) at no charge	14	8	2	0	0	24	0.1%

There were no issues raised regarding white page directories.

Table 5: Top 5 out-of-mandate issues

Customers can raise issues that fall outside of the CCTS’ mandate. This table identifies the top 5 issues.

wdt_ID	Issue	Number	% of total out-of-mandate issues
1	Customer service (e.g. wait times, rude representative, etc.)	3,633	36.7%
2	Service provider general operating practices and policies (e.g. the contents of plans and packages, the terms of fair use policies, etc.)	2,413	24.4%
3	Plant/poles/towers	681	6.9%
4	Pricing (e.g. prices set by service providers)	628	6.3%
5	Privacy issues	552	5.6%

Code of Conduct Reporting

The CCTS does not investigate every alleged breach of a Code. Complaints that are resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the customer and service provider do not receive additional analysis to determine whether a breach of the Code has occurred. These are described as “not requiring investigation” in the figures in this section.

The CCTS publishes an Annotated Guide to the Wireless Code and an Annotated Guide to the Deposit & Disconnection Code.

Terminology

Alleged breach: When a customer claims that the service provider failed to perform an obligation under any of the CRTC’s codes of conduct, or when a CCTS staff member identifies a potential code breach based on the details of a complaint. Each breach references an individual section of the Code. Thus, more than one alleged breach may be recorded in a complaint.

Confirmed breach: When the CCTS can confirm, based on its investigation, that a provision of any CRTC code of conduct has been breached.

No breach: When the CCTS has investigated an alleged breach and concluded that the service provider did not breach any CRTC code of conduct.

This report includes only those Code-related issues that arose in complaints which have been concluded and for which breaches have been confirmed in the reporting period.

The Wireless Code

Figure 2: Summary of Wireless Code breaches

There were 745 alleged breaches. 663 did not require investigation. 82 breaches were investigated. 28 were confirmed as breaches and 54 were verified as not a breach.

Table 6: Top Wireless Code breaches by section^[2]

Section of Code	Total breaches
B.1 Paper or electronic copy of the contract was not provided to the customer; contract did not include all the information listed in the Wireless Code.	10
C.1 Critical Information Summary	6
E.2 Service provider did not suspend roaming data overage charges once they reached $100	3
G.1 Early cancellation fees – general	2
I.2 Service provider did not give reasonable notice to the customer at least 14 calendar days or/and 24 hours before disconnection and the notice did not contain all relevant information	2
E.3 Service provider did not suspend data overage charges once they reached $50	1
G.5 Cancellation date	1
E.4 Charges for device/service not purchased	1
F.3 Lost or stolen devices – service provider did not suspend customer’s service	1
A.1 Plain language	1
Total	28

See Appendix B for a breakdown of the confirmed Wireless Code breaches by section.

Television Service Provider Code

Table 7: Television Service Provider Code breaches^[3]

Section of Code	Total breaches
X.2 Service provider did not inform customers if they could return to their previous programming options and if the same rates would apply during changes to programming options initiated by the customer; service provider did not offer to send to the customer a written summary of changes to programming options initiated by the customer	2
XI.1 TVSP changed customer’s contract without notice	3
Total	5

Figure 3: Summary of Television Service Provider Code breaches

There were 80 alleged breaches. 71 did not require investigation. 9 breaches were investigated. 5 were confirmed as breaches and 4 were verified as not a breach.

Internet Code

Figure 4: Summary of Internet Code breaches

There were 186 alleged breaches. 169 did not require investigation. 17 breaches were investigated. 4 were confirmed as breaches and 13 were verified as not a breach.

Table 8: Internet Code breaches^[4]

Section of Code	Total breaches
A.4 Charges for device/service not purchased.	1
B.1-5 Paper or electronic copy of the contract was not provided to the customer; contract did not include all the information listed in the Internet Code.	1
D.1 Changes to key contract terms during the commitment period.	1
I.2 Service provider did not give reasonable notice to the customer at least 14 calendar days or/and 24 hours before disconnection and the notice did not contain all relevant information.	1
Total	4

Deposit and Disconnection Code

The only confirmed breach for the D&D Code was related to section 3.2, Service provider did not give reasonable notice to the customer at least 14 calendar days before disconnection or the notice did not contain all relevant information.

Figure 5: Summary of D&D Code breaches

There were 18 alleged breaches. 17 did not require investigation. 1 breach was investigated. 1 was confirmed as a breach and 0 were verified as not a breach.

Appendix A – Complaints by Service Provider

August 1, 2020 – January 31, 2021

This list includes service providers that received at least one complaint during the reporting period. Overall, 408 service providers and brands participated in the CCTS during this reporting period (including 11 service providers that joined during this period). No complaints were received about 260 Participating Service Providers.

wdt_ID	Rank	Participating Service Provider	Mid-Year Report 2020-21	Proportion of all complaints accepted Mid-Year Report 2020-21	Proportion of all complaints accepted Mid-Year Report 2019-20	Change in proportion
1	1	Bell Canada	1,849	20.3%	25.9%	-5
2	2	Rogers Communications	1,201	13.2%	11.2%	2
3	3	Fido	940	10.3%	7.5%	1
4	4	TELUS Communications Inc.	644	7.1%	8.1%	2
5	5	Freedom Mobile Inc.	596	6.5%	6.8%	0
6	6	Virgin Mobile Canada	567	6.2%	6.5%	0
7	7	Vidéotron ltée/Videotron Ltd	561	6.2%	4.0%	1
8	8	Shaw Communications	470	5.2%	4.7%	0
9	9	Koodo	381	4.2%	3.7%	0
10	10	Xplornet Communications Inc.	296	3.2%	1.8%	-6

Appendix B – Confirmed Wireless Code Breaches by Section

August 1, 2020 – January 31, 2021

wdt_ID	Breached Code section	Confirmed breaches Mid-Year Report 2020-21	Proportion of all confirmed breaches Mid-Year Report 2020-21	Proportion of all confirmed breaches Mid-Year Report 2019-20
1	A. Clarity	1	3.6%	0.0%
2	A.1. Plain language	1	3.6%	0.0%
3	A.3. Unlimited services	0	0.0%	0.0%
4	B. Contracts and related documents	10	35.7%	19.6%
5	B.1.(i-ii). Permanent copy of the contract and related documents	5	17.9%	19.6%
6	B.1.(iii). a-e Key contract terms and conditions	5	17.9%	0.0%
7	B.1.(iii). f-m Other aspects of the contract	0	0.0%	0.0%
8	C. Critical Information Summary	6	21.4%	4.3%
9	C.1. Critical Information Summary	6	21.4%	4.3%
10	C.1.(iii)a. Services not included	0	0.0%	0.0%

Footnotes

Complaints can raise more than one issue. The complaints concluded between August 1, 2020 and January 31, 2021 raised 20,460 issues.
See the CRTC’s Wireless Code for full text of appropriate sections.
See the CRTC’s Television Service Provider Code for full text of appropriate sections.
See the CRTC’s Internet Code for full text of appropriate sections.

Mid-Year Report

August 1, 2020 – January 31, 2021

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

About the Numbers

About Our Activities

Operational Statistics

Complaints by Service Provider

Issues Raised in Complaints

Code of Conduct Reporting

Terminology

The Wireless Code

Television Service Provider Code

Internet Code

Deposit and Disconnection Code

Appendix A – Complaints by Service Provider

August 1, 2020 – January 31, 2021

Appendix B – Confirmed Wireless Code Breaches by Section

August 1, 2020 – January 31, 2021

Footnotes