The IT Nerd

Imagine being one of the three largest telcos in Canada and having your customers not be able to watch the biggest games in the history of the country right when it mattered most. That’s what happened to Bell Canada when it’s Fibe TV product did a #Fail twice during the Toronto Raptors run to the NBA title. It failed once during game five with about a minute to go in the game (which the Raptors lost). Which of course resulted in outrage and forced Bell Canada to send out an email to their customers that said this:

Customers using the Fibe TV app, including Mobile TV, Satellite TV and Alt TV customers, lost service for approximately 10 minutes on Monday night due to a hardware malfunction. The outage impacted all channels on the app, including the last moments of the Toronto Raptors game.

 We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and will be automatically applying a $10 credit to your account.

But last night with about 5 minutes to go in game 6 (which the Raptors won), it happened again. And the outrage on Twitter was epic:

What’s really ironic about all of this is the Bell Canada is a part owner of the Raptors, and George Cope who is the CEO of Bell was actually on hand at Oracle Arena to watch the Raptors win and accept the trophy after the victory. Something that wasn’t lost on angry Bell customers:

My wife and I almost switched to Bell about 2 weeks ago as they have some really enticing offers to draw you in. But we instead renewed with Rogers for 2 years after they came to the table with some offers that kept our phone, Internet and TV costs within the bounds of reality. And that now seems to be a great decision as it is pretty clear that the Bell TV offering isn’t robust enough to handle a event like the Toronto Raptors run to the NBA title. Let’s face it Bell Canada failed miserably on the biggest stage possible and it’s going to affect their ability to entice people to switch to them. Not only that, I suspect that their retentions department is flooded with calls at the moment from customers who couldn’t see the only Canadian NBA team win their first title.

It sucks to be Bell Canada right now.

First Rogers came up with a $75 “unlimited” plan (as it throttles you after you burn through the 10GB of data that Rogers serves up) that will be part of their normal offerings, then TELUS appeared with a promotional (as it expires on July 2nd) $75 15GB plan with no throttling, and just a few minutes ago Bell joined the other members of the “big 3” with their own $75 plan. Here’s the details from their website:

Our unlimited data plans start at $75 for 10 GB of data at unbeatable speeds across Canada. This allows you to upload, download and stream a ton of content at maximum speed. Beyond 10 GB of maximum speed data, you can use unlimited data at reduced speeds of 256 Kbps for light web browsing, emails and texting, without ever having to worry about data overage fees. See below for more unlimited data plan options and details on how to get started.

Offer ends June 30, 2019.

So this sounds like a clone of the Rogers plan. Except that like TELUS, this offer is time limited as it expires on June 30th. It also doesn’t offer any sort of data top up like Rogers has (which is 3GB of full speed data for $15 after you hit your 10GB cap which makes you eligible for throttling). At least, there’s not one that I see.

So, now that all 3 of the “big 3” have put their cards on the table. Who wins? If you want my opinion, it’s Rogers. That may surprise some of you. But hear me out. Rogers $75 offering is now how they’re going to do business going forward. That gives them the advantage here as TELUS and Bell are only offering their $75 plans as time limited promotions. That’s going to draw a clear distinction between Rogers and the other two of the “big 3” in which Rogers comes out on top. If I were Bell and TELUS, I’d be rethinking their strategies as it looks like we are actually starting to perhaps see some actual competition in the Canadian wireless space, and those two don’t look too competitive at the moment.

University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist has scored via an access to information request a treasure trove of documents that show that Bell Canada is trying to shape the universe to suit its own needs by getting Canadian regulators to do its dirty work:

This post starts with the submission from Bell, which was released via ATIP and which I’ve posted for research and news reporting purposes. The running theme from Bell is a simple one: regulate others, but not us. For example, the Bell online video regulation proposal conveniently seeks to regulate Netflix, Amazon, and other large U.S. providers while largely avoiding regulation for Canadian-based services. It does so by limiting regulation to those Canadian services with $300 million or more in revenue from online video services (likely no one right now) vs. the same $300 million threshold or $1 billion in total global revenues for foreign operators (thereby capturing Netflix, Amazon, CBS, Disney, etc.). Bell acknowledges the difference, effectively arguing that Canadian policy should encourage Canadian market entry without regulation and that domestic market entrants have long been supporting the system.

As for the proposed regulation, Bell wants a mandated contribution of 20% of Canadian revenues to support Cancon. It argues that the same foreign companies that would be required to pay into the system would be ineligible to access the funding nor able to use their existing investments to off-set the mandated contributions. This is notable for several reasons. First, foreign sources are already outspending Canadian broadcasters such as Bell on priority programming such as English-language drama, yet Bell argues that spending is irrelevant. Moreover, while Canadian entities would be able to tap into the Canadian funding, companies such as Netflix would be required contribute hundreds of millions of dollars without being able to do the same.

And there’s more:

No Bell submission would be complete without a call for website blocking. Bell resurfaces its arguments for the FairPlay site blocking system (even including one of its CRTC submissions as an appendix). In addition to changes to support site blocking within the Telecommunications Act, Bell wants an expansive new criminal prohibition in the Broadcast Act that would make it a criminal offence to knowingly “operate, advertise, supply or sell or offer to sell access to a distribution undertaking that retransmits broadcasting without lawful authorization from a programming undertaking.” In other words, Bell is calling for widespread criminalization of anyone even tangentially associated with unauthorized online video streaming.

Bell also wants its privacy obligations under the Telecommunications Act eliminated. It argues that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has applied a lower standard to companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon than it has to Canadian telecommunications companies. Bell’s claim rests on requirements that it obtain express consent for its consumer surveillance program (referred to as a relevant advertising program), whereas it argues that other companies do not face the same requirement. It describes this as an “Internet platform privacy gap” and it wants the same standard applied to all (how eliminating the CRTC’s role over privacy would achieve this is not explained).

Bell Canada clearly is living in an alternate universe where they clearly think that any or all of the above is acceptable. Perhaps Bell should seriously rethink the above because now that all of this is public and consumers start to find out about this, Bell can expect a fair amount of blowback that they will have difficulty dealing with. Though I will admit that if they are bold enough to come up with a strategy like this, they likely don’t care what Canadian consumers think. Which means that Canadian consumers should likely take their telco dollars and spend them with companies other than Bell Canada.

Bell Canada is asking customers for permission to track everything they do according to the CBC. They would be tracking activities on their home and mobile phones, internet, television, apps or any other services they get through Bell or its affiliates.

Tailored marketing means Bell will be able to customize advertising based on participant account information and service usage patterns, similar to the ways that companies like Google and others have been doing for some time,” the company says in recent notices to customers. If given permission, Bell will collect information about its customers’ age, gender, billing addresses, and the specific tablet, television or other devices used to access Bell services. It will also collect the “number of messages sent and received, voice minutes, user data consumption and type of connectivity when downloading or streaming.” “Bell’s marketing partners will not receive the personal information of program participants; we just deliver the offers relevant to the program participants on their behalf,” the company assures customers.

The only good news is that this is an opt in program. But the bad news is that if you opt in, you get little to no compensation for increased risks to you privacy and security. That doesn’t exactly sound like a reason to sign up for this. And I suspect that once word gets around, many won’t. Which means that Bell may get more aggressive and make this an opt out program. After all, they’ve done that before though they had to back away from it when the heat got cranked up. But it would not shock me if they went to that well again.

This is truly a shake my head moment as I can’t believe that Bell would go down this road given the times we live in.

I’ve been saying for a while now that Bell has been putting the boots to Rogers when it comes to Internet access through their Fibe offering which is technically superior to anything that Rogers currently offers. Well, much as Bell promised, the telco is rolling out 1.5 Gbps downstream and 940 Mbps upstream service for $84.95 a month. This price lasts six months and then jumps to $109.95 a month. If you’re in Ontario, you can get this now. Those in Quebec, Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces are in the coming soon category.

Now, other than the pricing strategy which to be frank drives me bonkers when teclos do that, Bell now has an Internet offering that is substantially faster than anything that Rogers offers. You have to wonder what the folks in red are going to do to counter what the folks in Blue have served up to the masses.

As I have previously mentioned, Bell has a distinct advantage over Rogers when it comes to their Internet offering. Now they are really starting to make life miserable for the guys in red. If you scan Bell’s quarterly earnings report, you’ll see this:

Bell today announced that Bell Fibe Internet speeds of 1.5 Gigabit per second (Gbps), the fastest available to the home in Canada, will launch this month in Ontario, followed by Québec, Atlantic Canada and Manitoba. Bell has already taken the top spot in PCMag’s The Fastest ISPs of 2018: Canada, delivering the highest overall Internet speed index ever recorded in Canada by the magazine and scoring more than 30% higher than our nearest competitor. Atlantic Canada’s Bell Aliant took second place while Manitoba’s Bell MTS moved into the top 10 for the first time. Bell’s fibre to the premises (FTTP) network is now available to more than 4.2 million homes and businesses in 7 provinces and continues to expand with the announcement of new all-fibre deployments in the communities of Oshawa, Clarington, Orillia, Chatham-Kent and Winkler.

Well, that’s going to freak VPs and C level execs over at Rogers as they have absolutely nothing that can compete against that, and from where I sit they have no real path forward to catch up. And keep in mind that Bell promises 5 Gbps speeds by next year, and 40 Gbps speeds in the future. Which means that if you’re Rogers, you should prepare your retentions department for an influx of calls as people ditch them for Bell and their faster speeds.

It sucks to be Rogers right now.

It’s clear that Bell is not slowing down when it comes to getting their Fibre Internet network into as many places as possible. I say that because the City of Winkler is next on the list according to a press release that the telco put out today. Keep in mind that from a technical standpoint, Bell has a superior offering with their Fibre network which is so far beyond anything that arch rival Rogers can offer, it will be only a matter of time before Rogers is a non-factor in the Internet game in Canada. The first customer connections should come “later this summer.”

I wonder who’s going to be next on Bell’s list to get their Fiber Internet offering?