BREAKING: CRTC Gets Involved In netTALK / Iristel Dispute
This story is one that seems to be developing quickly. In the last few minutes, a release has been put out by Iristel who is the company who is holding the phone numbers of netTALK customers “hostage” due to alleged non-payment by netTALK who provides VoIP services to said Canadians. This has resulted in an outage that leaves said customers unable to receive inbound calls. I have reprinted the release in full below:
Iristel working with CRTC to ensure netTalk customers get phone numbers back
MARKHAM, Ont. January 18, 2016 – Phone service provider Iristel Inc. is working with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for a solution to ensure netTalk customers in Canada do not lose their telephone numbers.
After two years of collecting fees from Canadians but not paying Iristel up to $2 million owed, service was denied to Florida-based reseller netTalk on January 15. About 75,000 Canadian consumers have been affected.
“We apologize for this and we do not feel comfortable putting Canadian consumers in the middle, but we ran out of options and had no other choice,” says Maged Bishara, Senior Vice-President, Iristel Inc. “We’re working with the CRTC to ensure customers can get their phone numbers back and also to ensure netTalk cannot do this again in Canada.”
Under CRTC rules, a telecommunications carrier like Iristel is not allowed to communicate directly with resellers’ customers without special dispensation from the regulator. That is why the CRTC must be part of a solution.
“The netTalk customers’ numbers are reserved pending resolution of this matter. We would like to remind the Canadian consumer that Iristel is a victim of netTalk’s unpaid bills for services rendered and that we will do everything in our power to ensure that the Canadian consumer is not penalized. We apologize for the delay and recommend consumers get a new number from a reputable Canadian provider and once this is resolved they’ll be able to get their original phone number back,” Mr. Bishara says.
The tone in this release is one that is clearly designed to allow Iristel to take the moral high ground. Basically they are saying “we realize that we’ve caused you grief, but we had no other choice. Plus the real bad guys are the ones who haven’t paid us. Plus we’d like to make this go away, but without the help of the CRTC, we can’t because we’re legally not able to.” It’s an interesting strategy. I’m not sure how well that will play. But I do know one thing. Iristel is being far more communicative than netTALK at this point. That I am sure will play well for them as the side that has more fulsome and robust communications tends to do better than the one that doesn’t.
More on this story as it develops.
January 19, 2016 at 5:33 pm
This should never been allowed to happen. How many other companies have this same arrangement? We should be informed so we don’t deal with them either.
January 19, 2016 at 7:03 pm
This is from Iristel Samer Bishay Twitter
You have no idea how much trouble you are in @netTALK . I’m CANADIAN and I’ll make sure Canadians get their #’s back but not with @netTALK
Obviously there is more to what iristel was claiming earlier and I I think Iristel planned this hostile attack on nettalk to get them out of Canada. What shamefull tactics putting 75,000 canadian out of receiving phone calls which could be as important as a surgery schedule. I do think CRTC should penalise Iristel.
January 19, 2016 at 8:56 pm
I wouldn’t hold my breath in terms of the CRTC penalizing anyone. Here’s why: https://itnerd.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/two-new-updates-from-the-nettalk-iristel-saga/
January 19, 2016 at 8:58 pm
I have no clue. But my feeling is that the CRTC might have been able to step into this earlier: https://itnerd.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/two-new-updates-from-the-nettalk-iristel-saga/
January 20, 2016 at 8:58 am
Chief Executive Officer and President served as the President of Nettalk until November 26, 2014 (see below). So as he was on both sides of the fence he forgot to pay Iristel, which he founded in the past . Two years of unpaid bills when in the first year of the two years he was on both side of the fence and Iristel appears to be soory for costumers. Is this being provided to the current users whose phone numbers have been suspended as a result of a simple family feud and a president who forgot to pay the bill to the company he has founded. . Any reason why he did not pay Iristel as a President of Nettalk. Perhaps he forgot to do his job of which one task was to pay the bills.
In your last press release Iristel has indicated that they are worried for the Canadian users and that is the reason they have suspended the phone numbers. It does not look it is the case as they choose to tell what makes them look better than Nettalk when it is a simple family feud…..
Executive Profile
Samer Bishay
Chief Executive Officer and President, Iris Technologies Inc.
Age Total Calculated Compensation This person is connected to 0 Board Members in 0 different organizations across 2 different industries.
39 —
Background
Mr. Samer Bishay serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President at Iris Technologies Inc. Mr. Bishay served as the President of Net Talk.com, Inc. until November 26, 2014. Mr. Bishay is Founder of Iris Technologies Inc., and led it from a small startup to an international telecommunications service provider with domestic infrastructure licenses on three continents. Prior to founding Iristel, he was a lead Systems Engineer in the Radarsat program at the Canadian Space Agency. He brought about optimization techniques which further improved performance and significantly increased revenues for the Space Agency’s satellite mapping initiative. He has been a Director of Net Talk.com, Inc., since April 23, 2014. He won numerous awards and accolades. He is the recipient of Profit Magazine’s Young Entrepreneur Award as the youngest CEO among the Top Profit 100 companies in Canada. He is a graduate of the Space & Communications program at York University, Toronto, with an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree.
October 28, 2016 at 12:44 pm
I am one of the people who stayed with Nettalk after the hostage taking and being assured that things would get better. Having said all of that, I am currently having issues with my phone and for close to two weeks now have not been able to get proper technical support. I have a technical support team member on the chat helpline who leaves me there for days and when I complained about him leaving me hanging like that for close to two weeks he suggested that I give him my address so he can send me a complete refund and to go elsewhere. Stay away from this company, they are bad news and clearly even low enough to go against their own legal agreement with customers when you have a problem.
October 28, 2016 at 12:45 pm
P.S. The technical support team member I was talking about above is named Nicholas.