Mid-Year Report
August 1, 2024 – January 31, 2025
Executive summary
About the numbers
- Accepted complaints are up 12%—from 10,663 complaints at last year’s mid-point to 11,909 this year (mid-year range: August 1, 2024, and January 31, 2025).
- We helped resolve 85% of complaints. Most of those resolutions were achieved within 20 days.
- Wireless remains the most complained-about service, representing 50% of all issues raised. Internet issues comprise 26% of all issues raised.
- TV issues jumped significantly, increasing by 49%. The primary drivers of the increase are rental equipment, contract changes and regular price increase of monthly price plans.
- Billing issues remain the top concern for customers. Incorrect charge for monthly price plans accounts for 12.8% of all issues raised in complaints.
- For the first time, TELUS had the highest number of complaints in the period, with 19.7% of all complaints accepted by the CCTS.
- Five Participating Service Providers (PSPs) make up 72% of all accepted complaints: TELUS, Rogers, Bell, Shaw and Fido.
All comparisons are to Mid-Year Report 2023-24 unless otherwise specified.
About our activities
- Launched the Investigation Findings Library in October 2024 to enhance transparency about our complaint-handling and decision-making processes. The Library contains dozens of anonymized complaint findings that demonstrate how the CCTS analyzes and assesses complaints when we investigate whether a provider met its obligations to its customer. We continue to add additional Investigation Findings to the database.
- In response to reports of wireless connectivity challenges in the region, we issued a joint news release with the Government of Yukon in fall 2024 to inform residents of Yukon that if they encounter service delivery problems that their service provider can’t resolve, they have the right to recourse via the CCTS.
- Sustained public awareness efforts of our services through social media, search engine marketing, sponsored editorial content and radio campaigns to various audiences across Canada.
- Published our 2023-24 Annual Report, reporting that CCTS helped a record number of customers with unresolved phone, TV and internet complaints.
- Completed our annual audit of PSPs’ compliance with the CCTS’ public awareness requirements to ensure public awareness of the services that we provide.
- Welcomed eight new PSPs between August 1, 2024, and January 31, 2025. The CCTS did not terminate the participation of any PSPs for non-compliance.
Key numbers
11,909
Complaints accepted
11,331
Complaints concluded
85%
Complaints resolved*
August 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025
*percentage of complaints resolved as a proportion of the number of concluded complaints
Complaint statistics
Complaints by service provider
All statistics are as at February 1, 2025 and are subject to audit. See Appendix A for complaints accepted about all service providers.
Complaints about TELUS increased by 63%, making it the most complained-about PSP for the first time in CCTS’ reporting cycle. This increase is largely driven by issues about incorrect charge for monthly price plan, breach of contract, and regular price increase of monthly price plan. The proportion of all accepted complaints about TELUS increased from 7.1% five years ago to 19.7% during this reporting period.
The top five Participating Service Providers make up 72% of all accepted complaints (TELUS, Rogers, Bell, Shaw and Fido).
Shaw appears in the top five PSPs for the first time in the last five years. Complaints about Shaw increased by 194%. The proportion of accepted complaints about Shaw is 9.6%, up from 3.6%. Key drivers of the increase in Shaw’s complaints were issues about rental equipment, changes to the contract, breach of contract, and regular price increase of monthly price plans.
In total, the CCTS accepted 657 complaints from Shaw and Rogers customers about increases to their TV set-top-box rental fees. Customers raised concerns that their contractual arrangement provided price certainty and that the price increases to set-top-box equipment fees were not permitted. Most of these complaints (593 complaints) were about Shaw, and nearly all complaints were resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both the provider and the customer.
Issues raised in complaints
The 11,331 complaints concluded in this period raised 22,635 issues. A single complaint can contain more than one issue. For example, a customer may submit one complaint about both the billing of their internet service and roaming charges related to their wireless service. These are reported as two issues.
All comparisons are to Mid-Year Report 2023-24 unless otherwise specified.
Out-of-mandate issues
Customers may raise issues that fall outside of the CCTS’ mandate. Table 5 identifies the top five out-of- mandate issues. If a complaint raises issues that fall outside of the CCTS’ mandate, the CCTS will direct the customer to another agency if one can better assist.
Reporting on CRTC consumer protection Codes of Conduct
In this section, we present statistical reports on the four CRTC consumer protection Codes of Conduct that CCTS administers.
When we accept a customer complaint, we record and track all of the issues raised in the complaint. Some complaints raise questions about whether a provider has complied with a code of conduct. We call these “alleged breaches.”
The majority of the complaints we handle are resolved to the mutual satisfaction between the customer and service provider at the early stage of our process. When complaints are resolved during these early stages, we do not have the information necessary to investigate the underlying issues, including determining if there have been any violations of a code of conduct. Therefore, these issues remain characterized as “alleged breaches” and are categorized as “not requiring investigation” in the following charts.
In the cases that we do investigate, we can determine whether there has been a violation. We categorize proven violations as “confirmed breaches”. One complaint may contain several confirmed breaches. When we investigate and determine that there has not been a violation, we categorize this as “no breach”.
Given that we investigate fewer cases to confirm if there has been a code violation, we advise caution in the use of confirmed breach numbers for analysis about systemic code compliance.
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 we have 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.
Wireless Code
| Code section | Total breaches |
|---|---|
| A.3. Unlimited services | 9 |
| 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. | 6 |
| E.2. Service provider did not suspend roaming data overage charges once they reached $100. | 6 |
| I.3. Disputing disconnection charges | 4 |
| A.1. Plain language | 2 |
| C.1. Critical Information Summary | 2 |
| E.1. International roaming notification | 2 |
| E.4 Charges for device/service not purchased | 1 |
| G.5. Cancellation date | 1 |
| I.2. The 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 | 34 |
1See the CRTC’s Wireless Code for full text of appropriate sections.
See Appendix B for a breakdown of the confirmed Wireless Code breaches by section.
Internet Code
| Code section | Total breaches |
|---|---|
| F.1. Service calls, including visits for installation and repairs | 6 |
| I.2. Notice before disconnection | 2 |
| G.3. Cancellation date | 1 |
| C.1. Critical Information Summary | 1 |
| B.5.(i)a-e Key contract terms and conditions | 1 |
| A.5. Clarity of offers | 1 |
| Total | 12 |
2See the CRTC’s Internet Code for full text of appropriate sections.
Television Service Provider Code
Deposit and Disconnection Code
| Code section | Total breaches |
|---|---|
| 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. | 1 |
| 3.3. Service provider did not give reasonable notice to the customer at least 24 hours before disconnection. | 1 |
| Total | 2 |
Appendix A – Complaints by Service Provider
August 1, 2024 – January 31, 2025
This list includes service providers that received at least one complaint during the reporting period. Overall, 432 service providers and brands participated in the CCTS during this reporting period (including eight service providers that joined during this period). Only 140 service providers received complaints, and no complaints were received about 292 Participating Service Providers during this period.
Appendix B – Confirmed Wireless Code breaches by section
August 1, 2024 – January 31, 2025