The IT Nerd

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.

Bell has laid down the gauntlet in terms of wanting to have the fastest Internet access around by launching an all-fibre broadband network in Toronto. What that means is as follows:

• Bell now offers fibre to the premises (FTTP) service with speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second with symmetrical upload and downloads. Meaning you get those speeds on both directions rather than a fast download speed, but a substantially slower upload speed.
• Bell claims that they will increase these speeds to at least 5 Gbps next year and ultimately to 40 Gbps and beyond in future.
• Fully symmetrical speeds are available at all Internet speed tiers.

Having symmetrical speeds is something that in the past was only found in business class Internet. The fact that Bell is bringing it to consumers is a big deal. And the fact that they’re the only ones thus far to do so has Rogers on the back foot as Rogers doesn’t offer fibre to the premises nor do they offer symmetrical speeds. It will be interesting to see how Rogers responds to this because if Bell can deliver all of this at a decent price without the sort of shenanigans that they’ve been caught doing recently, they will eat Rogers alive.

Here’s a tip for Bell, just serve up your best price and not the “introductory price” games that you play. That will get you a ton of customers in a hurry.