The IT Nerd

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?

PC Magazine has released their report on the Fastest ISPs in Canada, and Bell took the crown by a fair margin. Second was Bell Aliant which was just slightly ahead of Rogers. But both were behind Bell by fair amount.

The reason that Bell won was their deployment of their Fibe Internet offering. An offering that I’ve said is going to push Bell to the front of the pack because competitors like Rogers have no way to match that. And I fully expect that Bell’s advantage over their competition is only going to increase as they are aggressively rolling this offering out to everywhere they can.

I have to admit that switching to Bell is really tempting. If they could clean up their customer service issues, they would be free to take my money.

I’ve been monitoring the progress of Bells new all-fibre broadband network which has rolled out in Toronto, Orillia, And a couple places east of Toronto. Up until now the clear target is Rogers as they seemingly have no answer for what Bell has to offer. But today it seems that Bell has now turned its attention to Chatham-Kent which is about three hours west of Toronto in terms of its next place to roll out their all-fibre broadband network. It’s also the HQ of Teksavvy which for years has offered far more affordable Internet and home phone services than either Bell or Rogers has been able to.

Service will initially be offered to Chatham and then it will be expanding to Blenheim, Ridgetown, Tilbury and Wallaceburg and Bell promises that the first customer connections will be in the fall. It will be interesting to see how both Rogers and Teksavvy react to this. Particularly the latter as this has to be seen as a direct threat to Teksavvy.

If you’re Rogers, Bell must be making life miserable for you. First they rolled out an all fibre network in Toronto, then they rolled it out to a number of places east of Toronto. Now cottage country is going to get some all fibre love as Bell is rolling out their all fibre offering to Orillia which is north of Toronto:

Fully funded by Bell, the network deployment will include more than 260 kilometres of new fibre installation and employ local workers in design and construction. Broad availability of Bell’s all-fibre connections in Orillia is expected by the first quarter of 2019. 

“Bell’s investment will put Orillia among the top 10 per cent of communities across Canada for high-speed connectivity,” said Dan Landry, Manager of Business Retention and Expansion with the Orillia Economic Development Office. “The City of Orillia will now be able to provide businesses and residents with full confidence they will have true fibre connectivity as a resource.”

With every city that Bell adds to their list of places where you can sign up for their all fibre offering, they make life more and more difficult for Rogers as from a technology standpoint, they have the upper hand on Rogers. I fully expect these announcements by Bell to become more and more frequent so that they continue to make life more and more difficult for Rogers and leave them with no path to recover.

If you’re Rogers you have to scared right now. I say that because Bell is stepping up its rollout of their Fiber To The Premises offering. First there was Toronto. Then in late April, Oshawa which is just east of Toronto got some Fibre love from Bell. Today, Clarington which is east of Oshawa is apparently the next on the list to get Fiber To The Premise.

It’s clear that Bell is being hyper aggressive here, and frankly I don’t blame them. They have a superior offering versus what Rogers can serve up. So why not take that advantage and run with it as hard as they can? As long as they don’t screw up, and to be clear, that could happen with Bell given their multiple faux pas over the last few months, they could run up a massive lead against Rogers. This activity from Bell as of late says to me that when it comes to residential Internet access, Bell has Rogers in its sighs and is going for the killshot.

Bell has taken some serious hits lately on the customer service front. Including having the highest amount of complaints to the CCTS so far this year. Well, here’s another hit. A Bell customer took Bell to court over their pricing strategy and won in epic fashion. Here’s the details from the CBC:

In a judgment issued last month in a Toronto small claims court, Deputy Judge William C. De Lucia said that Bell’s attempt to impose new terms after a verbal contract guaranteeing a monthly price for 24 months had been struck was “high-handed, arbitrary and unacceptable.”

It all started in November 2016, when David Ramsay called a Bell customer service representative to inquire about TV and internet services.

The sales agent told Ramsay he could get Bell’s Fibe TV and internet services “for $112.90 a month for 24 months” and then said he’d get an “email confirmation of everything that was just discussed.”

But when the email arrived, it said prices were actually “subject to change” and that Bell was planning to increase its price for internet service by $5, two months later.

“I was stunned and appalled to find these buried terms in an email,” says Ramsay. “I had a contract, and this ain’t that contract.”

Ramsay called Bell to say the emailed contract was different from the verbal contract he’d made on the phone.

I’ve heard this from other Bell customers and this is one reason why I have not switched from Rogers to them. This business practice really rubs people the wrong way.

Here’s what ultimately led to this epic win:

In a move that was pivotal to his legal case, he requested a transcript of the call in which the customer service rep promised him a fixed price for two years.

All contact centers be it sales, customer service or technical support record your calls and keep them for anywhere from six months to two years. And they have to tell you that before you talk to someone live. I know this because I help contact centers set up these recording systems and design the policies for them. You have a right in Canada to get a copy of the recording or the transcript. Usually through the privacy office of the company.

There were two other things that I should mention about this case:

1. Bell tried to pay off this guy before the case got to court and get him to sign a hush agreement. He refused. And good for him for doing so.
2. The customer complained to the CCTS before going to court. They closed his case. But when this judgement against Bell surfaced, the CCTS changed its tune and said that they will look at falling in line with this judgement and look into previous complaints of a similar nature.

This underscores the fact that while Bell is the worst when it comes to this sort of thing, the telco industry in Canada needs a serious shakeup due to the fact that Canadians don’t get the best value from any of the “big 3” telcos. It’s high time that one of the “big 3” simply just offer Canadians the best deal possible right up front. No tricks. No gotchas. No fine print. The other two would fall in line instantly if they did that. If that doesn’t happen, I say that the Canadian Government needs to step in and clean up the business practices of the telco industry. Because, clearly the “big 3” are unwilling to do so on their own.