Government of Yukon working with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services

This is a joint news release between the Government of Yukon and the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS).

This summer, Yukoners have reported ongoing poor quality cellular phone service across the territory, including dropped calls, poor reception and delayed text messages. Following up on Premier Ranj Pillai’s efforts to raise Yukoners’ concerns with Canada’s major mobile network operators, the Government of Yukon met with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) to explain the Yukon's ongoing service delivery challenges and to understand how the CCTS can help assist individuals and small businesses.

Yukoners shared stories about their experiences with mobile phone and internet services this summer, including:

• doctors and nurses in communities trying and failing to relay patient test results;
• wildland firefighters finding it challenging to make the phone calls needed to keep communities safe during the fire season;
• small business owners unable to collect payments by credit card; and
• everyday Yukoners unable to communicate with friends and family members despite paying some of the highest cellular phone and wireless service costs in the country.

Premier Pillai shared these stories with CEOs of BCE, Inc. (the holding company operating Bell Canada), TELUS and Rogers, urging them to fix the problems with their networks and provide appropriate compensation to Yukoners, who continue to be billed full price for sub-standard levels of service.

Premier Pillai received responses from all three companies. BCE, Inc. established a hotline for Yukoners to call and speak to a client service representative directly. TELUS offered customers filing complaints with a credit on their next device purchase through the company. Rogers indicated that it does not currently offer cellular services to residents of the Yukon.

Yukoners continue to indicate that their experiences working with mobile service providers to resolve their concerns have been neither fair nor satisfactory.

The CCTS is an independent, not-for-profit organization and Canada's national ombuds service for the telecommunications and television industries. The CCTS helps customers and small businesses resolve complaints about wireless, phone, internet and TV services fairly and at no cost.

To help Yukoners better address concerns around the quality of wireless services, the Government of Yukon is working with the CCTS to ensure that Yukoners understand the organization's role.

• To help customers and service providers resolve problems when they have been unable to do so directly.
• To track and report publicly on complaint trends, so as to inform the industry regulator (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission), telecom companies and the public, so that these insights can inform any improvements needed in the telecom landscape.

The Government of Yukon encourages customers to first work with their service providers to solve service delivery issues. Yukoners should know that if they are not satisfied after giving their service provider an opportunity to resolve their concerns, they have the right to recourse via the CCTS. To file a complaint with the CCTS, Yukoners will need to have the following information ready:

• a description and details of the service problems and the impact that these service problems have had; and
• any supporting emails or online chats with your service provider about the problem.

The CCTS' role is to ensure service providers have met their obligation to customers. If a customer is not experiencing the expected service quality, the CCTS:

• examines whether the service provider has followed its processes to troubleshoot and address the service quality issue or issue credits;
• considers what other steps the provider has taken to fix the issue and resolve the complaint; and
• considers what is fair and reasonable in the circumstances.

While CCTS cannot fix broader infrastructure or network issues, the CCTS has the ability to hold service providers accountable for delivering what has been agreed to and for promises that they have made to customers about the service they provide.

The Government of Yukon will continue to advocate on behalf of all Yukoners to ensure that they are treated fairly.