The IT Nerd

TekSavvy Solutions Inc. today voiced its dismay and disappointment in a recent decision by the federal Cabinet concerning the wholesale rates charged by large carriers (such as Bell Canada and Rogers) to smaller ISPs, such as TekSavvy. 

In a statement, the federal Cabinet effectively directed the CRTC to increase wholesale rates— above the rates independently set by the CRTC in 2019, after a lengthy proceeding. The CRTC’s 2019 rate decision confirmed that the large carriers overstated their costs of providing wholesale access to their networks, corrected their rates based on evidence of their costs and ordered the large carriers to repay amounts they overcharged ISPs over the 3 year process. The CRTC previously condemned the large carriers’ rate-fixing conduct as “very disturbing” because it would drive smaller ISPs out of business and deny Canadians choice for internet services.  

However, the large carriers petitioned Cabinet to overturn the CRTC’s decision and impose higher rates. Over 150,000 Canadians voiced their support for the CRTC’s decision and urged Cabinet to support lower Internet and cell phone bills. In addition, TekSavvy filed a formal Complaint with the Competition Bureau, detailing how large carriers deviated from CRTC-costing rules to grossly inflate wholesale rates for competitors, while at the same time offering retail prices below the wholesale costs they had inflated. TekSavvy submitted that Cabinet should order an investigation into this anti-competitive conduct because it inflates retail prices for Internet services, costing millions of Canadian consumers hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Ultimately, in announcing Cabinet’s verdict on the petitions, Cabinet caved to pressure from the large carriers, who threatened to hold back investments in rural Canada unless they were protected from competition. The decision is a reversal from Cabinet’s previous direction that the CRTC place affordability, competition and consumer interests at the forefront of its regulatory proceedings. 

Having gone five years without cost certainty, paying inflated interim rates and facing brazen anticompetitive conduct in a climate of extreme regulatory uncertainty, TekSavvy is left with no choice but to interpret this announcement as an expectation from the government that retail prices should be raised.

TekSavvy Solutions Inc., is requesting the CRTC take immediate action to ensure the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who use independent Internet service providers (ISPs) continue to be able to access these services during the COVID-19 crisis.

Never have so many Canadians relied on their internet service as they find themselves working and studying from home during this unprecedented situation. Under the current wholesale rate structure, independent ISPs are forced to pay inflated fees to the big Canadian telecoms. On Thursday, April 9, Calgary-Nose Hill MP and shadow Minister for Industry and Economic Development, the Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner, called on the government to act (Rempel Garner Announcement) to safeguard competitive internet access for Canadians. Her statement calls for urgent action to address the precarious conditions that put the independent ISPs at risk at a time when Canadians most need these services.

Further, TekSavvy has asked the CRTC to investigate unilateral changes that the big Canadian carriers are making to regulated processes for ordering, service installations and repairs. Without oversight by the CRTC, the big incumbent carriers may bestow undue commercial advantages to their retail services through the uneven application of stricter COVID-19 procedures.

TekSavvy has always supported fair prices for Canadians. Now, as Canadians live through these extraordinary times, TekSavvy is asking the government and the CRTC to ensure that fairness and stability are maintained through this health crisis. To do this, the government and the CRTC must enact emergency provisions to put in place the final rates from the CRTC’s August 2019 decision on an urgent basis while ongoing appeals processes play out, ensuring independent ISP’s continue to deliver service to Canadians from coast to coast.

TekSavvy has put out a statement regarding billing for overages on capped packages. Marc Gaudrault, TekSavvy’s CEO had this to say:

As Canadians will work from home and families stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, TekSavvy is suspending billing for overages for current TekSavvy customers on capped packages, effective immediately until April 5, 2020. This change has been automatically implemented and customers are not required to take any action. We hope that this will help TekSavvy customers during this public health situation.

TekSavvy and its affiliate cable company Hastings Cable Vision Limited, announced the launch of its IPTV service, TekSavvy TV, in selected regions throughout the province of Quebec today. TekSavvy TV will offer customers Cloud PVR service, access to selected programming GO apps, video on demand, and over 150 HD channels of sports, movies, series, and kids programming including video-on-demand content from select television channels.
Eligible TekSavvy customers in Quebec who wish to order can sign up through the MyAccount portal at myaccount.teksavvy.com. TekSavvy TV is currently available as an app on select Apple TV, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV devices. Customers can start with TekSavvy TV Basic at $20.00 per month and then choose additional theme packages and/or select channels for an incremental monthly fee gaining them access to more live sports, premium series, and blockbuster movies. TekSavvy TV requires a TekSavvy residential Internet subscription with a minimum download speed of 15 Mbps.

TekSavvy today announced the launch of its cable internet services in select regions of New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

This expansion of services into New Brunswick and Newfoundland includes the communities of Fredericton, Moncton, Corner Brook, Gander St. John’s NF, Saint John NB and many others. Consumers can go to www.teksavvy.com, enter their address and see what internet packages they can order.

With the launch of cable internet service, TekSavvy allows consumers to connect to higher download speeds at fair prices without long-term commitments. TekSavvy cable internet service starts at $53.95 per month with speeds of 75 Mbps and 150 Mbps with unlimited monthly usage.

New Brunswick availability: Bathurst, Campbellton, Chamcook, Edmundston, Fredericton, Miramichi, Moncton, Pokemouche, Saint John and Woodstock.

Newfoundland availability: Corner Brook, Gander, Grand Falls-Windsor, Notre Dame and St. John’s.

To learn more about TekSavvy and to see what internet packages consumers qualify for, please visit www.teksavvy.com.

TekSavvy today urged Canadians to visit paylesstoconnect.ca to voice their support for a historic CRTC decision to lower Internet prices.  Canada’s Big Telcos, such as Bell and Rogers, petitioned the federal cabinet to cancel the decision and hike Internet prices instead. The Big Telcos’ price hike petitions are open for public comment until February 14.

The CRTC’s decision lowered the wholesale rates Big Telcos charge small ISPs, like TekSavvy. The CRTC found Big Telcos broke its rules and fabricated costs to inflate their rates for competitors, keeping prices high for Canadians. During its 4-year rate-setting process, the CRTC condemned the Big Telcos’ Internet rate-fixing as “very disturbing”, lowered their rates and ordered them to repay overbilled amounts back to March 2016 (estimated at $325 million).

The Government of Canada stood up for telecom consumers by directing the CRTC to promote competition, affordability and consumers’ interests. Following the CRTC’s decision, TekSavvy immediately began passing the benefits on to consumers, lowering Internet bills and upgrading services for hundreds of thousands of customers – until Big Telcos halted the CRTC’s decision in court.  The Big Telcos have since filed numerous appeals to overturn the decision and thwart any benefit to consumers or competition.

Visit Paylesstoconnect.ca to make your voice heard.

TekSavvy Solutions and its affiliate cable company Hastings Cable Vision Ltd., today announced the launch of its Cloud PVR service and other advanced features. TekSavvy TV Cloud PVR works very much like a traditional Personal Video Recorder (PVR) that Canadians have been using for years, only now the customer can store their recorded content securely and privately in the TekSavvy TV Cloud. TekSavvy TV Cloud PVR subscribers can watch, pause and rewind their favourite recorded show whenever they want, across all of their authorized devices.

The TekSavvy TV Cloud PVR starts at $10.00 per month for 50 hours of recording time. Customers who want a bit more recording space can order 100 hours of recording time for $15.00 per month. Customers can add the service to their accounts by visiting teksavvy.com/myaccount.

TekSavvy today also announced two new advanced viewing features for TekSavvy TV customers: Look-Back and Restart. Customers who miss the beginning of their favourite shows or must-watch games can now catch all the action no matter when they tune in with Restart. Look-Back allows customers to go back up to 30 hours in the electronic programming guide and select shows that have previously aired and watch them in their entirety. Look-Back and Restart are available on selected content and channels to which the customer subscribes. Both Look-Back and Restart are available to customers at no additional charge.

TekSavvy announced today that it has been named as the winner in the category for Internet Service Provider in four readers’ choice awards:

• Niagara Falls Review – Readers’ Choice GOLD Award winner
• NOW Magazine’s Best of Toronto 2019 (8^thyear in a row)
• Catharines Standard – Readers’ Choice Platinum Award winner
• Welland Tribune – Readers’ Choice Platinum Award winner

TekSavvy has been proudly serving Canadians with reliable telecom services for more than 20 years and has won numerous awards for the quality of its service and for its commitment to fighting for consumers’ rights online. With offices in Chatham, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec TekSavvy is Canada’s largest independent telecom service company with over 300,000 customers from coast to coast.

TekSavvy Solutions Inc. today announced that it is lowering bills and upgrading packages for hundreds of thousands of internet subscribers, crediting a recent decision by Canada’s telecom regulator for its consumer-friendly moves.

TekSavvy confirmed that over 85% of its customers will benefit from reduced prices or upgraded, unlimited data plans on their next monthly bill, as the ISP streamlines its retail product line in the wake of a major regulatory decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) last month.

On August 15, 2019, the CRTC determined that Canada’s biggest telecom companies—such as Bell Canada and Rogers—had grossly overstated their costs in providing smaller competitors with wholesale access to their networks. The CRTC identified numerous brazen deficiencies in the big telcos’ evidence, found that the existing wholesale rates were in fact severely inflated, and corrected the final rates down to more reasonable levels. The CRTC further ordered the big telcos to repay the amounts they had overcharged smaller competitors during the 3 year regulatory proceeding.

In a related decision from 2016, the CRTC strongly condemned the big telcos’ wholesale rate-fixing behaviour as ‘very disturbing’, because it would drive smaller competitors out of business and deny Canadians choice for Internet services.  Both CRTC decisions show the big telcos ignored the CRTC’s regulations to exaggerate their costs, which in turn drove up costs for competitors and kept retail prices high for consumers. The CRTC-ordered refund dates back to March 2016, which the big telcos claim adds up to $325 million. However, the disputed amount is much higher, given that the big telcos first introduced their extremely inflated wholesale rates in 2011.

In regards to yesterday’s announcement that the CRTC promotes competition for broadband Internet services by setting lower wholesale rates, TekSavvy’s Andy Kaplan-Myrth, VP, regulatory and carrier affairs, has issued the following statement:

“For years, incumbent carriers inflated their wholesale rates and, as a result, TekSavvy and other competitive Internet service providers struggled to compete. TekSavvy has been ringing alarm bells about this for years and today, after a lengthy process, the CRTC set realistic final rates that will allow wholesale-based providers to effectively compete.

Canadians want to pay less to connect, and the government has sent a clear signal about the importance of telecom competition. Today’s CRTC decision reflects those values and, at the same time, validates competitors’ arguments that wholesale-based providers were overcharged for years before the Commission started to make these adjustments.

Providing competitive internet services requires properly costed input rates, speed matching through access to fibre, and parity in services and service quality. This decision is one important step toward a fair framework for wholesale-based competition, and TekSavvy looks forward to continuing to fight for FTTP services and a level playing field for service quality.”