Transcription, Audience du 12 juin 2025

Les participants et l'endroit

Tenue à :

Centre de Conférence
Portage IV
140, Promenade du Portage
Gatineau (Québec)

Participants :

• Président de l’audience : Adam Scott
• Membres : Bram Abramson, Conseiller, Ontario
  Ellen Desmond, Conseillère, Région de l’Atlantique et Nunavut
  Nirmala Naidoo, Conseillère, Alberta et Territoires du Nord-Ouest
  Stéphanie Paquette, Conseillère, Québec
• Conseiller juridique : Michael Ostroff
• Secrétaires de l’audience : Alexanne Patry, Jade Roy
• Gérant de l’audience : Albert Xie

Table des matières

Présentations

1733 Fenwick McKelvey

1855 Rogers Communications Canada Inc.

2119 Sam Hudson

2262 Independent Telecommunications Providers Association

2443 Cheetah Networks

Transcription

Gatineau (Québec)
12 juin 2025
Ouverture de l'audience à 8 h 59

Gatineau (Québec)

‑‑‑ L'audience débute le jeudi 12 juin 2025 à 8 h 59

1731 THE SECRETARY: Good morning. We will begin this morning with the presentation of Fenwick McKelvey.

1732 When you are ready, you may begin.

Présentation

1733 PROF. McKELVEY: Thank you very much.

1734 I’d like to begin by acknowledging that I’m speaking from unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather today. Tiohtià:ke or Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations.

1735 I also wish to thank Roxanne Bisson for her help preparing these comments.

1736 Last Saturday, when driving my children to their morning activities, I passed a billboard advertising Canada’s fastest internet. It was, literally, a sign that helped me distill my comments today before the Commission.

1737 What does being the fastest internet in Canada mean, seemingly a valuable enough metric to justify an entire billboard in Montreal? How can Canadians know what “fastest” really means, or even whether having the fastest internet is valuable to them? If a company is going to spend the money and take the risk of advertising the fastest internet, then I would assume you also want your audience to understand what that means, yet most Canadians don’t understand and they’re asking for better tools to help them make informed choices.

1738 Many find it difficult to compare internet service because of vague terminology and overwhelming information. In its 2018 report, the Union des consommateurs noted that participants describe the formatting of information, long texts and small fonts, as a major barrier to their comprehension.

1739 The CRTC’s own Transparency Report echoes the clear demand of Canadians. Eighty‑four (84) percent of Canadians surveyed said it would be helpful or very helpful to receive standardized broadband information, and when shown a label example, that number rose to 87 percent. Canadians are asking for better tools.

1740 Broadband labels are a necessary component to consumer literacy that too often relies on marketing and advertising. The CRTC’s own research shows that current literacy is lacking. The report for this hearing found:

“Even if Canadians understand the nature of the metric and the relative comparison, their understanding of what threshold or range is best for their needs is often what makes the information provided feel lacking.”

1741 And I would add this survey reports only self‑reported understanding, not an evaluation of whether lay understandings of the internet are actually correct to measure and gauge performance.

1742 In the CyLab study I submitted, participants, including those with technical backgrounds, consistently wanted clear explanations of what quality of service metrics mean and how they impacted their experiences. Even without prior understanding, participants reported that short definitions helped them feel empowered to choose the right service. That’s the point of a broadband label.

1743 Broadband labelling is important for Canadians to exercise their rights under the Internet Code. Increasingly, consumer protection requires literacy and public information to enhance the effectiveness of advertising and to mitigate misinformation. Broadband labelling is proactive, public information that is a necessary step towards building literacy around internet service performance.

1744 I recommend the CRTC adopt a labelling regime that is a pillar of a large consumer literacy campaign, built on its existing broadband standards, machine readable for public interest offerings to help consumers shop for services and exercise their rights, standardized, and, finally, led by the CRTC as part of its consumer protection activities.

1745 While we can debate the exact specifics of the label, I want to emphasize the core objective: to translate complex technical measures into plain language that helps Canadians decide what internet is best for them and what services they need. I would hope that labels could move past vague, hard to measure theoretical upload and download speeds toward simpler metrics such as latency, minimum service levels, and other concrete performance indicators.

1746 The regulator has established what counts as a good service, what measurements are necessary to judge, and how to make these measurements. I have participated in the past hearings that have set broadband measurement criteria, including latency, as well as the importance of where to measure on the internet, or what is called an internet exchange point. These measures should be well established by now, enough to deliver long overdue broadband labelling.

1747 Broadband labels should reflect lived experience and help people answer those exact questions. The CyLab research backs this up. Participants based their purchasing decisions on three things: how much they’re going to pay; what speed and quality they would get, and how much of the time they will not get what they paid for. The challenge is to translate quality of service or technical measurements into everyday lived experience or what is called quality of experience.

1748 What is notable about the CyLab’s broadband label is the effort to move beyond technical measurements and metrics towards meaningful, real‑world explanations for users clearly illustrating how these numbers affect everyday internet use. I would encourage the CRTC to give itself the mandate and develop its broadband labels over time, with user testing and public feedback.

1749 I am greatly encouraged by efforts to develop new measures of competitive service already and I welcome the CRTC’s suggestion to include over‑subscription labels as part of this hearing.

1750 I would also encourage a discussion about simultaneous users to help households like mine subscribe to a service that can cope with many simultaneous connections and manage the demand. This is for someone who has had to ask their kids to stop streaming so I could take a work meeting frequently during the pandemic. These are the type of real‑world lived experiences that I think are necessary and part of the foundation of a strong broadband literacy campaign.

1751 The counterarguments against broadband labelling are unconvincing. I do not think these labels will add undue costs, as most of the information should be already collected. If anything, broadband labelling should add value to the advertising mentioned above, allowing service providers to speak to knowledgeable customers who know the value of the service they offer.

1752 Broadband labels are long overdue and an easy good. Effective labelling allows service providers to better compete, consumers to make informed decisions, and the CRTC to better protect Canadians.

1753 Thank you.

1754 THE SECRETARY: We’re just waiting for the mic to work.

1755 THE CHAIRPERSON: There we go. Sorry, Mr. McKelvey. Just having some tech difficulties.

1756 What I was trying to say is thank you very much for starting us off this morning. We’re really glad to have you here, and our questioning is going to start with Commissioner Abramson.

1757 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you and good morning. Thanks for being with us from Montreal.

1758 Professor McKelvey, you asked us to conduct a literature review on research done about broadband labels. You attached to your intervention a study from Carnegie Mellon University.

1759 If we did do the broader literature review you’re talking about, what do you think we would take from it that we’re missing?

1760 PROF. McKELVEY: Thank you very much, Commissioner.

1761 I think the two parts I’d say is that, one, it’s important to recognize the efforts that have been done to move past, I think some of the standard nutrition label designs and formats to think about the ways that these metrics can be communicated more clearly, and that’s what I found was quite striking about the CyLab is seeing kind of innovation. And for me as a good professor, I’m always mindful that I don’t know as much as I pretend to do while talking, and so my recommendation for the literature review is just to make sure that some of the context in Europe and more globally where I’m not as familiar also might be recognized.

1762 I understand in the Commission’s call they mentioned the European Union and the FCC’s broadband labels as well as Australia, and I’d like to make sure that that was kind of comprehensive as well as making sure that user experience might be brought into this because I feel like part of this is less about the technical measurements than understanding how everyday users understand these measures. And I think sometimes that’s what’s lost, is that we can talk about latency, but that really doesn’t translate into somebody until you describe that it makes their Zoom call not work as well.

1763 And so what I’d also like to see is figuring out and ensuring that the Commission has a good grounding on the research to build on, I think, with this really strong and innovative program.

1764 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you.

1765 And you’ve mentioned jurisdictions other than the U.S., and so I take it that when you talk about looking at broader research and study you’re talking about not just nutrition labels as they have in the U.S., but approaches taken elsewhere to summarizing and characterizing quality of experience.

1766 PROF. McKELVEY: Yes, certainly. And through this hearing, I was able to review some of the work that was also being done in Australia and it’s, I think, important like how there’s a program to walk a customer through the purchasing experience, and so a one‑pager being given before the pre‑sale. I think this is something where, to me, the label, and this is what I wanted to emphasize, is part of a broader consumer literacy program.

1767 And I feel like this is a clear benefit because it will allow companies to get more value, frankly, about their advertising because they can say, well, to a knowledgeable audience, this is worthwhile. But they can also ensure that there’s kind of steps and standards for people making these choices.

1768 And ultimately, I think part of what the concern is that nobody benefits from a regime where it’s about ‑‑ always about theoretical “up to” maximum speeds because it’s constantly competing about a very hard‑to‑reach metric. And even though Canadians kind of feel that that’s fine now, it still does demonstrate a challenge about how much people actually understand about the service and whether they need the services that they’re asking for.

1769 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks.

1770 We’ve heard the view that nutritional labels may not be worth the effort, in other words, that few people click on them, that consumers tend not to rely on them, and so we’ve been having a conversation about that at this hearing, you know. That’s the testimony we’ve heard from a number of intervenors. Others have said, well, it may take time and, you know, that other standard labelling in other industries has taken time, a bit of an adoption curve.

1771 We talked yesterday about the idea that there’s almost phases to that adoption curve, resistance, regulation, normalization, platformization (sic). But at the end of the day, we’re certainly not in the business of creating regulatory obligations that aren’t useful and that aren’t worth the squeeze, as it were.

1772 So what is we required broadband labels and no one used them? Where would that leave us?

1773 PROF. McKELVEY: Well, I think that this speaks to, to me, a broader reflection on the challenges of our current information environment and I think the function of public institutions more broadly in how they navigate that environment.

1774 Now, one of the challenges today is that certainly there’s an overabundance of information, but I think there’s consistently a dearth of quality information. And this would be my same recommendation of why we talk about the necessity of public broadcasting and the concerns about mis and disinformation that seem to be kind of ubiquitous is that without access to quality information, there’s no opportunity for customers or consumers or Canadians looking for that information to find it.

1775 And so I don’t know if that’s actually the most effective measure because I do not think that whether or not it’s being used necessarily is the right indicator of a successful program. And really, in this point, I think it’s important to ensure that Canadians have access to trustworthy information and that what we’re working on is a campaign to build capacity about ways and literacies to find the best information possible. And in that case, I think the CRTC has an important role and I think broadband labelling is a basic first step.

1776 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Is there a way to measure success?

1777 PROF. McKELVEY: Well, I think there are kind of two measures here. So I think one is trying to use something like the CCTS to see whether the broadband labels are part of feedback, and certainly I think there is a deeper conversation outside of my purview around kind of contracts and the responsibilities is that whether we would see Canadians be able to cite or point to some of this information as part of their complaint process, that would be an indicator.

1778 I don’t think that’s necessarily the only way of measuring it, but I do want to kind of talk about one that would be a very clear pathway. When we were talking a long time ago about broadband measurement, the goal often we got bogged down on being like how good a measurement was this for me, often, was, was this a good enough measurement to instigate a process towards better ‑‑ like to instigate an investigation process to get more correct information. And certainly you want to have something like a broadband label that could trigger some investigation.

1779 I think that’s one indicator, continuing to do public opinion research and making sure that we can see trend lines in the research. And I think it’s clear that like the part of this, to me, is actually how we’re doing some of this measurement about literacy and some of the surveys are about how well do people think they know. And there would be, I think, a way of measuring over time how well do they actually see knowledge about this, and that would be something that I feel like in five years would be quite doable to actually see whether it made a difference. And I think that that’s kind of a foundation of evidence‑based policy, but I think it’s very feasible in this context.

1780 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks.

1781 In your presentation, you talked about implementing and developing broadband labels over time with user testing and public feedback, so I take it that your suggestion to us is to sort of embark on an iterative process rather than a one‑and‑done broadband label or at least one‑and‑done for a while?

1782 And I guess I’m thinking about it from an implementation standpoint and the difficulty of having to continuously adjust what is presented to the public.

1783 PROF. McKELVEY: I certainly think that that is a kind of valid concern. I do want to knowledge that this is a space where there could be some innovation and I don’t want to see a kind of rush to just implement something like the FCC’s nutrition label given the kind of other indicators that I know of from the CyLab, which is why I genuinely put it on the public record.

1784 I was really heartened to see this over‑subscription measurement included as a potential ‑‑ you know, as an innovation, and so the part that I would like to say is make sure that the Commission takes the time in ‑‑ whether it's in the hearing or subsequent to the hearing, to kind of develop the label in such a way that it is really fulfilling, to me, the literacy function.

1785 And in that case, I would think that like a strong first step would be great and then some refinement subsequently would be part of the process.

1786 And I also just want to acknowledge that, as someone who’s lived through the pandemic, I can’t always predict what will be trends on the internet and I do want to give the CRTC enough of a mandate to revisit broadband labels if necessary given shifts in consumer ‑‑ you know, consumer habits online. And that’s, I think, that biggest thing for me.

1787 And certainly whether there’s an iterative process internally that leads to a launch or it’s after the launch it’s refined, I’m relatively indifferent so long as the CRTC has that mandate and thinks about that as part of the rollout.

1788 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks. That's helpful.

1789 By definition, a nutrition label as you’re talking about is a structured data product. The FCC, in their rollout of broadband nutrition labels, has mandated that this information be available in graphic form at point of sale, but also in a structured data format at a given web address.

1790 The study that you appended to your intervention strongly recommended that all information found on the labels be made available to independent third parties, ideally via requests to publicly accessible, computer readable databases.

1791 Can you speak to this? Why is that important? Why would they recommend it strongly, and are you doing so for Canada by having submitted that study?

1792 PROF. McKELVEY: Well, I’m really heartened to see that study on record because in a good‑faith collaboration it’s the best study I’m aware of, and I think shows some really innovative research in this work. So certainly I want to kind of say that not all studies are perfect, but it's nice to see the consideration here.

1793 The third part, like the machine readable data, I think creates opportunities for service comparison and potential innovation in public interest tools to help customers make a comparison. And we’ve seen some work around this about how customers might shop for services and I’ve seen iterations in Canada where it’s like, hey, what cell phone do you need, here’s a tool for this. And so I don’t necessarily know if it’s going to lead to that and I want to make sure that there’s a definition in how the data is being made available to ensure that it’s for kind of public interest purposes because I don’t want to see this information misused, although it’s largely public information, so I’m not entirely sure why or how it could be misused.

1794 But I would say that that creates an opportunity for new services that might be able to kind of aggregate and help customers shop and create opportunities for third parties to provide that decision‑making capability, which I think would simply supplement the different pathways that Canadians would have in selecting internet service. And certainly I don’t know if that’s going to fix it, but at least it creates the potential and that having it in a structured way also might allow myself as researchers to be able to use this and make comparisons. And certainly access to good quality broadband data in Canada is challenging, and so the fact that this would also be a source for research purposes is not something I necessarily see as something I would be doing, but it also creates a potential there and I would like to keep it on the record that there’s an opportunity there for this supporting public interest research.

1795 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: In the event that we were to mandate the publication of certain structured data in an open data format, would this alleviate the need for structured nutritional labels as you’re talking about? In other words, would giving third parties the possibility of creating them alleviate the need to require ISPs to create them?

1796 PROF. McKELVEY: I think it's both. Certainly you’re asking a more detailed question about shopping for services, which I think is something that, you know, when we’re talking about literature reviews. That way of trying to understand the lived experience in a Canadian context of how Canadians make that decision, the CRTC has done work on that and I think, you know, I’m just mindful that that’s what I’m trying to assess when I’m making ‑‑ responding.

1797 My sense is that the baseline point that will also inform any third‑party services will be probably determined by the label itself, and so if the CRTC can signal a best practice through a visual label, then that will actually set the baseline that third parties, I would expect, would follow.

1798 So in my expectation, it’s necessary to have both because it’s the CRTC that would have the power through the labelling ‑‑ the visual labelling design, the standardized labelling design, to set expectations that third parties likely would have to adopt because that work is ‑‑ that literacy is always being developed. And I think, to me, that centres, I think, the CRTC in this necessary process of building consumer literacy.

1799 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: ISPs have focused as well on consumer literacy and they’ve pointed out that, you know, there’s a risk of overwhelming the consumer with too much information. If we were to mandate both, as you say, that is to say, both specific labels to be offered at specific points in the process of purchasing or being invited to purchase and so on and also to mandate open data, would it be possible to reduce the amount of information on the label in order to avoid overwhelming the consumer by including that data in the open data for others to simplify and summarize in a customized way? In other words, could we get away with less than you’re asking for on a nutritional label if we provided what you’re asking for, in your view, and obviously, you know, that’s not to say that we’re adopting your proposal, but I’d like to clarify your views, if we included what you’re asking for in the open data portion?

1800 PROF. McKELVEY: I had not and have not given that detailed consideration to the differences between the standardized visual label and the open data label.

1801 I would say that the risks here are minor because it ideally and should be the same information, so I’m not expecting the consumer to be overwhelmed because the information they’re getting on the nutrition label should back up the information they’re getting in other services. And if anything, in terms of media literacy, being able to see the same information in different sources is one of what we’ve seen as a key part of like media literacy today. I’m forgetting the acronym off the top of my head, but this is, I think, the SIF strategy is looking at multiple sources.

1802 I think that that’s something I’m open to having the CRTC have a flexibility in making a judgment around that and that if it’s seen to be that the labels themselves are becoming cumbersome but there’s other information that might be worthwhile, I would leave it to the CRTC to make a judgment call about that and I wouldn’t ‑‑ so long as that ‑‑ this doesn’t lead to less information, then I’m open to there being some differences of what information is available on the label and what information would be available through an open‑ended standard.

1803 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks. And just one last question for you before I turn it over to my colleagues.

1804 I know, Professor McKelvey, that you participated in the proceeding and in the CISC group that led to our decisions in 2018 and 2019 about the methodology for measuring something different, which is whether universal broadband is achieved in particular communities and projects.

1805 How applicable is that methodology here and would it ‑‑ is it something that we can build on in order to avoid having to, sort of, go through years of CISC all over again? Or perhaps less than years, but CISC none the less in thinking through a methodology for what we’re asking for here?

1806 So I guess I’m asking, how tightly should the methodology be prescribed, and if so, what kind of building blocks do we already have to work on it?

1807 PROF. McKELVEY: I mean, in my understanding, and as someone who has committed to this, I feel like the CRTC has all the necessary building blocks for the labeling. Initially when it was let’s talk broadband, we were talking to upload 50/10. And there was some ‑‑ and there still continues to be, I think, some debate about how to measure speed.

1808 I think that’s something that I state in my comments, is speed is a little tricky measure. And you see moving ‑‑ I think there’s actually greater movement around minimum, maximum, peak, off peak speed. There’s a variety of innovations there. Certainly, that could require some minor clarification. But I don’t think enough that that would be a barrier.

1809 On other parts, the working group that I was involved in was about quality of service. So it was actually specifying very clearly what are measurements of a good internet service? And I feel like that was contentious, because it was like, well, what is good? And then you get into an existential question.

1810 But at the end of the day, the CRTC made recommendations about 50 millisecond latency as an indication of good internet service that was measured from a client’s account to an internet exchange point. The same was also done, I think for packet loss, and subsequently for jitter, although I don’t think I participated in the jitter one. These are all the fundamental technical measures that if you look at broadband labels are the ones kind of top of shelf.

1811 So for me, I don’t ‑‑ and I would be disappointed if the CRTC reopened that, because there was so much effort to clearly communicate and come to a decision on that. And what I would like to see is actually the CRTC implement some of its past recommendations on determinations of good internet service.

1812 And so I feel like the building blocks are there, that we have done this work, that was difficult work with the CISC working group, and I feel like this is the kind of foundation that means that broadband labelling would be a small step. And I would say that broadband labelling came up there.

1813 And the fact that it’s in 2018 that we were talking about latency and it’s 2025, we’re talking about labelling, to me speaks to the urgency about implementing broadband labelling, and the fact that I feel like the lift isn’t as high as is being made, because so much of that work has been done in past CRTC work.

1814 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks very much. Those are my questions. I know my colleagues have a few as well.

1815 PROF. McKELVEY: Thank you, Commissioner.

1816 THE CHAIRPERSON: Professor, you referenced some of the survey work that shows consumers, you know, make their purchasing decision primarily on speed and price, and maybe to some extent quality. Some parties have argued that because that’s what consumers base their decision on there’s no need for other information.

1817 Is it a bit of a chicken and egg? Is that why they make ‑‑ is that what they make their decision based on because that’s the information that the have? Or is that ‑‑ are those really the only factors that matter to them?

1818 PROF. McKELVEY: I feel like the greatest sin the internet ever did was let download speeds become the way that it was sold. And that really, part of what I think collectively would be great is if we could admit that download speeds is not the perfect way of advertising a quality of service experience, and how do we get away from that?

1819 I think to me that’s a central message. And so, when people say, oh, they’re looking for download or upload speed, I mean technically that’s only one indicator of a quality of service of good quality internet, in my expert opinion. So how do you get people away from that?

1820 I also feel like it’s a benefit to everybody. I feel also like a great sympathy for telecommunication companies themselves, who are really also bound by and stuck with having to kind of emphasize speed itself as their one indication of a quality of experience. Like, not like how ‑‑ what’s their up time for example, or other indicators that I think are actually quite essential. I mean, I doesn’t matter how fast your internet is if it doesn’t work. That would be a good way of having that communicated.

1821 So to me, I actually thin it is something where it is a bit of a chicken and an egg, where it’s like people don’t know and it would be great, and I feel like labels are maybe one step towards trying to kind of break the ice, or get away from this kind of loop of just focusing so much on download speeds when making these decisions.

1822 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks very much.

1823 We’ll go to Commissioner Paquette next.

1824 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Good morning, Professor. Just a small question, a quick follow up on the question asked by my colleague, Commissioner Abramson about measuring the success.

1825 Are you aware, and I think you kind of answered. But are you aware of any post implementation research that was done after the implementation of the FCC label to measure the impact of the label?

1826 PROF. MvKELVEY: No, I am not. I’m not following the FCC as closely. So I’m not aware of research that was done subsequently. I think the ‑‑ and I didn’t see anything when I was reviewing the reports from the CyLab.

1827 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. Thank you very much.

1828 THE CHAIRPERSON: And we’ll go to Commissioner Desmond next.

1829 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Good morning, Professor McKelvey.

1830 Just a couple of questions. You had an exchange with my colleague around the importance of education and literacy and making sure that the information is available. At the same time, we’re hearing from providers telling us that all of this information is already available.

1831 So you know, when we put those pieces together it’s almost as if, how can we make it easier for the comparison between plans so people can understand what’s out there and then being able to compare the information. If that is the goal, to try and make the information more readable and easier to compare, in your view, would it be better to have it in a label format or in the open data format that we’ve been talking about?

1832 PROF. McKELVEY: Well, one thing I want to emphasize is the distinction between literacy and advertising. And one challenge for me is that I’m not as clear whether when we’re talking about companies’ websites would they classify that as a form of consumer advertising, because they are trying to sell services? Or is that a literacy campaign?

1833 Certainly, when I see a billboard, I assume that’s advertising, and for me one of the challenges is that relying too much on advertising alone as a signal or as a consumer literacy campaign can fall short. And I think that that’s really at a fundamental level, is how do we supplement information and education campaigns from just being around advertising.

1834 So I think for me that’s one of the information is out there. That information often could be interpreted as advertising, and my expectation would be consumers might be a bit more skeptical of that type of information because they’ve been trained naturally to kind of be wary of advertising.

1835 Now, in terms of the steps, I think it is kind of both things. I don’t entirely have a pathway of how it will change Canadians’ purchasing decisions around broadband.

1836 And I think part of what we can’t tell is like, this question of effectiveness, I certainly think that this is ‑‑ if we keep, you know, measuring ‑‑ if we keep hearing simply about measuring whether this is going to work or not, I think we miss the function of the fact that this is kind of a function now of a regulator and this media environment, or as any kind of public institution, to be ensuring that there’s good quality information out there. I feel like that is actually a shift and a key part of any modern mission, given the kind of information context we are in.

1837 To your question specifically, I think to me it’s that they’re kind of doing different things. The label itself is a key point of, or key moment, or key tool in developing literacy. So someone is like, if I’m shopping for a service, I need to know these things. Subsequently, if they are comparing, or if there’s a site that allows ‑‑ or even maybe and ideally you would see companies themselves leverage this data to make more compelling arguments for themselves on their website. Like, it doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a third party, and seemingly this would be something, that you know, could have been done earlier, is making these comparison tools.

1838 In that sense, the way Canadians are going to make a choice is going to be in relation to the standardized labels that are going to help them say, well, this is the stuff the label says is important. Just like when I pick up a box of cookies at midnight and look at how many calories are on those cookies now, that’s something that I know now. And when I’m looking ‑‑ when I’m in a store and I’m looking at the different labels I can make that choice. So I think that to me the label is part of other ways that consumers then are exercising those rights.

1839 And for me, I don’t want this hearing to go too much into the speculative, because there is really just a chance here to put the label in place, which has all these kind of upside benefits, which we might not necessarily be able to predict, and that shouldn’t decide or not whether we think the label or not is the right choice.

1840 I really feel like that’s kind of a first step and there’s lots of next steps to take. But I think that that ‑‑ thinking about it as a literacy tool is the crucial point for me.

1841 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: I just have one more question.

1842 And I did look very closely at the report that you attached. I found it really interesting and the iterative approach that the U.S. has taken. My colleague has asked about whether or not there has been any kind of evaluation of the U.S. experience. What about in the UK or Australia? Do you know of any kind of feedback or evaluative tools that have used to see whether or not their guidance approach has been effective?

1843 PROF. McKELVEY: I am not as familiar with those jurisdictions. I think that’s one of the parts to me when I was recommending a literature review, its like to me, these are necessary questions that I believe are out there. But in my capacity in participating in the hearings, I’ve not been able to do that subsequent research.

1844 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Okay. Thank you very much.

1845 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you again for answering our questions.

1846 We do like to leave a minute for a final thought for our intervenors. Either to make a point that you had hoped would come up in questioning that didn’t, or if there’s just a particular point you’d like to emphasize to leave us with. Over to you.

1847 PROF. McKELVEY: This is a new one for me. I will say that, you know, I’m really heartened and I would encourage the Commission to emphasize as Commissioner Abramson’s first question did, on the kind of existing literature there. And I think it’s always with a regret that I don’t know more off the top of my head about great sources.

1848 But I do think that in the first sense, there’s a strong evidence to suggest how this labelling campaign could work, and that this is at the baseline, a first step and to not overcomplicate what is, I think, a really necessary move that’s going to unlock new opportunities and new ways of thinking about how the CRTC protects Canadians.

1849 And I think that this is key to the foundations of its mission, and I would strongly encourage the Commission to see labelling as a necessary first step for many of it's operations, and I think it’s in its mission to Canadians, to serve Canadians.

1850 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

1851 I will now ask Rogers Communication Canada Inc. to come to the presentation table.

1852 PROF. McKELVEY: And thank you very much for this opportunity and for the questions.

1853 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

1854 Once you are ready you can introduce yourself and your colleagues, and you may begin.

Présentation

1855 MR. SHAIKH: Good morning, Vice Chairman Scott, Commissioner Abramson, Commissioner Naidoo, Commissioner Paquette, and Commissioner Desmond, and Commission staff.

1856 My name is Dean Shaikh. I am Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, at Rogers Communications. I am joined today by, to my right, Ciara Beauchemin, Senior Vice President, Residential Marketing; and Damian Poltz, Senior Vice President, Wireline Network. To my left is Howard Slawner, Vice President, Regulatory Telecom; Deborah Evans, Director, Regulatory; and Ruth Altman, Director, Regulatory.

1857 We are pleased to appear today to discuss why there is no need for mandated disclosure of multiple highly technical performance metrics or a standardized broadband label. Canadian consumers are already well informed about internet services and this additional regulation will likely complicate their purchasing decision, not simplify it.

1858 The broadband internet market in Canada is extremely competitive. Telecommunications providers consistently deliver high quality services and plans designed for every budget, effectively meeting the needs of Canadians in both urban and rural communities.

1859 To stay competitive, Rogers works tirelessly to ensure our customers obtain the services they want at an attractive price. This, in turn, enables us to continuously make massive investments in advanced network technologies, generation after generation. It is critical that the Commission does not undermine our investments or drive‑up costs for consumers.

1860 When this proceeding is complete, the Commission will see that consumers already have access to the important performance metrics, as well as contract terms, without a requirement for standardized labels.

1861 When introduced and passed into Law, Bill C‑288 was about clearly and prominently disclosing typical upload and download speeds during peak periods. Rogers already discloses speeds in our marketing materials, on our website, in contractual documents, and in our customers’ online account information, keeping our customers well informed.

1862 The Commission’s own public opinion research confirms that the vast majority of Canadians are satisfied with their presale experience. This demonstrates that mandating additional performance metrics or a standardized label is not required. Consumers are easily finding the information they need, when they need it.

1863 The Commission has already addressed many of the concerns in this proceeding. The Internet Code mandates clear communication of key contract terms in pre‑sale offers. The Code also mandates that those terms are described in the Critical Information Summary that must be included in service contracts.

1864 The Commission must balance any expected expanded disclosure requirement with a clear understanding of the dynamic nature of network performance and the costs that service providers will face to implement and maintain the disclosures. These costs will ultimately be borne by consumers.

1865 The Commission should also recognize that service provider resources are finite. Any requirement to expend resources to comply with regulations forces service providers to reorient their investments from the priority of building strong, resilient networks for Canadians. Excessive regulation may also undermine competition, choice, productivity, innovation, and investment.

1866 Ciara?

1867 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Thank you, Dean.

1868 As the leader of our residential marketing team, I know how critical it is for our customers to understand the details of their services with us, something we proudly do today across all our products.

1869 At Rogers, we are driven first and foremost by our commitment to delivering the best customer experience, which starts with providing clear and transparent information. We also know that customers choose products based on their needs, and delivering plans to suit those needs is a priority for us.

1870 This approach is good for customers and good for us. It also increases satisfaction and loyalty, decreases demand for service and technical support, and reduces the likelihood of customers choosing a competitive service.

1871 Through our national networks, we continually invest to bring world‑class technologies to Canadians. This includes investing nearly 70 billion in our networks over the last two decades. Last year we invested 4 billion in capital expenditures supporting even better connectivity and bringing multi‑gig speeds to almost 7 million homes across the country.

1872 Due to intense competitive pressure, Canadian broadband networks have been built to out‑perform consumer requirements and have repeatedly and consistently been ranked as highly reliable. For the second year in a row, OpenSignal named Rogers the most reliable internet in Canada. The OpenSignal report showed that Rogers provided Canadians with the most reliable overall experience.

1873 We remain committed to investing to build and maintain a world‑class network that delivers the best technology to Canadians. For example, we are the first provider in Canada to launch WiFi 7, bringing Canadians better Wi‑Fi coverage and enhanced reliability. This is the first in a series of launches this year to deliver WiFi 7 across Canada.

1874 When customers are shopping for home internet, they look for performance that meets their daily use. From our perspective, this makes sense. Upload and downloads speeds are a measure of reliability and quality, directly impacting customers in a way they can see and appreciate.

1875 Consumers do not generally find other technical jargon like latency, jitter, and packet loss helpful. These are not widely understood concepts or significant differentiators for most consumer internet use.

1876 Oversubscription ratio is not a broadly known concept, and disclosure will not give customers any useful information. Furthermore, a higher oversubscription ratio is actually an indication of efficient and effective network management and industry leading speed tier offerings. The ratio does not provide any meaningful information about congestion or reliability.

1877 Mandating any new obscure and potentially misleading performance metrics will not assist consumer purchase decisions and will likely frustrate or confuse the average customer. We see this as harmful to the goal of this proceeding, which is to make it easier for customers to shop for home internet services.

1878 Howard.

1879 MR. SLAWNER: Rogers works hard to attract and keep every customer, and the broadband industry has never been more competitive. Ongoing investment in networks and service innovations across all parts of Canada is dependent upon a regulatory framework that is targeted, predictable and flexible.

1880 Requiring service providers to incur significant costs of measuring and disclosing performance metrics that are unimportant to most consumers does not serve these goals.

1881 Furthermore, any mandatory performance metrics should be limited to fixed wireline services. For wireless internet, measuring typical speeds is more costly and difficult because of the impact of geography, topology and weather, as well as its nomadic nature.

1882 Wireless internet has helped to expand access to high‑speed internet for rural Canadians. Mandating expensive measurement techniques risks undermining the business case for a valuable and innovative new service. This widely available, high‑speed, lower‑priced connectivity option increases access and choice to Canadians. Flexibility is required to allow network builders to bring these types of new and cutting‑edge products and services to consumers.

1883 Rogers opposes the introduction of a standardized broadband label, but if the Commission does go ahead with one, it should only be required in the pre‑sale context in a digital format. The purpose of the legislation, and this proceeding, is to make it easier for consumers to shop for a home internet plan. More importantly, information is already provided in a post‑sale context through the requirements of the Internet Code.

1884 Speed is a universally understood performance metric for home internet that allows consumers to select the service best suited to their needs. Peak period speeds effectively measure network performance. Mandating a label cluttered with other highly technical information will only overwhelm the average consumer, defeating the stated goal of making shopping for home internet easier.

1885 MR. SHAIKH: Broadband service providers face intense and ever‑increasing competition for the privilege of connecting Canadians. There is every incentive to communicate in a clear and transparent way to attract and maintain customers. At Rogers, we already make every effort to ensure all our customers are well informed.

1886 Consumers understand and use speed information to determine the performance of a service and choose the one that best meets their needs. Mandated disclosure of other technical metrics and a standardized broadband label are unnecessary.

1887 However, if the Commission does move forward with additional mandated disclosures, they should not duplicate existing Internet Code requirements. Any new requirements should be as targeted as possible to not overwhelm consumers, nor create unnecessary and costly burdens for service providers.

1888 Thank you. We look forward to answering your questions.

1889 THE CHAIRPERSON: Great. Thank you very much for being here and participating in writing as well.

1890 We’re going to start off our questioning with Commissioner Paquette.

1891 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Good morning.

1892 So in preparation for your appearance I went to Rogers’ website to look at your internet offers. And I see the following information provided in the description of your internet package. I see the download speed without any up to mentions, upload speed with an up to mention, I see the price with and without applicable rebate, duration of the rebate, a notion of appropriate number of users with a qualification of the kind of usage, from moderate to high. I see that the modem is included, and I see a mention that speeds vary, depending on the technological capacities.

1893 So, I will come back on this mention for sure and on the up to or from. But I guess I would like to start by asking: Do you systematically display this information at all levels of your communications with your clients, including advertising; or if not, can you explain what you display most of the time at what level and for what reason?

1894 MR. SHAIKH: Thank you for the question. I will ask Ciara to weigh in.

1895 It sounds like to me what you are describing is what we are trying to explain, which is that we are very transparent with our customers, and we make our best efforts to disclose as much information as we can that is most useful to them to inform their purchase. And as you move through the sale process, they are more and more informed.

1896 And I think one of the other things we want to talk about is how we are actually trying to make sure we are engaging with customers and providing them with all the context they need to inform their purchase decisions, whether it’s website or other channels.

1897 Ciara, do you want to weigh in?

1898 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Thank you. Being transparent with our customers is very important to us. We would agree that plain upload and download speed would not explain to a customer the context within which they can use their services.

1899 So, we have gone further and tried to get ahead of that by adding contextual information around the number of devices a customer can connect to that service, as well as typical activities they might do.

1900 As you click through on a service, it will get into even more detail, such as a customer might find that tier good for video calling, streaming. Depending on the tier, we might say it’s good for 8 Case streaming or gaming. We like to provide customers in plain language, typical activities that they might want to do in a really understandable and relatable way.

1901 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: So this is, from your point of view, the information that is needed in order for the customer to make an informed decision.

1902 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: I think the information is helpful context to make an informed decision.

1903 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. And what about latency? What do you think of TELUS’ position that latency could be considered a relevant metric that can be easily produced and measured?

1904 MR. SHAIKH: Well, it won’t surprise you that we disagree with TELUS’ position. It’s not easy to test and validate, and especially with some of the conversation around how you would do it in terms of geographic sale. It could be incredibly costly to implement.

1905 The other thing I would say about latency is that it’s not a problem in this industry among any providers. I believe when SamKnows looked at this, they saw latency ranging from the single digits to the teens. And we even heard this morning that under 50 millisecond latency provides a strong service. And we are well below that.

1906 So, I don’t think it’s helpful to confuse or mislead customers about latency when we’re all delivering a product and service where latency is not a concern.

1907 I’m going to ask Damian to weigh in there a bit, as well.

1908 MR. POLTZ: Yes, I completely agree. I think the latencies that we are talking about here are already so low that they are completely imperceptible to customers and even gamers. And, as well, what we’re talking about here is really last mile latency, so latency from the modem, the device in the home, to the core, the centre of the city that you are connecting to. That’s a very, very short distance and misses the bigger picture of latency.

1909 Latency also extends in the wi‑fi in the home. That’s a big contributor to latency. That’s an area that we focus a lot. Latency is also from that core location all the way to where you are going, so be it Google or be it that game server, which could be anywhere across Canada or into the U.S. That’s a huge component of latency, and that’s where we spend a lot of our time improving the architecture of our networks to make sure that that end‑to‑end experience is what counts.

1910 So talking about these imperceivable differences in latency in that last section misses the bigger picture and misses what’s really important. And what’s really important is building and competing on that end‑to‑end customer experience.

1911 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: And you don't think ‑‑

1912 MR. SHAIKH: And, sorry, if I can, I just want to add, because it’s important.

1913 We are proud of the fact that OpenSignal, when considering a number of performance metrics and the overall experience, declared that Rogers offered the most reliable home internet experience.

1914 I have a huge concern ‑‑ and Damian will speak to this ‑‑ if you identify, for example, one performance metric. If that was considered an important competitive differentiator, which it is not, there is a distortion that could happen in the marketplace, and in our investments where we are maybe incented to focus on that as a single performance metric when really it is not.

1915 Damian?

1916 MR. POLTZ: I would completely agree. And, yeah, that’s a great point. I don’t think you want to create a system that incentivizes us to target this last mile tiny portion of the whole ecosystem, when it’s the full story that is so important. It’s important to make sure we are ‑‑

1917 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: So you think that even for a gamer, this last mile wouldn’t be useful information?

1918 MR. POLTZ: No, I don't think so. I think gamers understand that it’s a very small component of it, and that’s why a gamer won’t connect maybe over wi‑fi. Maybe they’ll use ethernet. They will also choose based on how they connect into the U.S. and their access to game servers. And that is information that they know well and that they access.

1919 So, I do not think that that component of it is useful to gamers.

1920 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay.

1921 MR. SHAIKH: Sorry, I also want to add, because we were listening very attentively to the submissions of the DWCC and various accessibility groups, who I think made it clear that it’s not the individual metrics that they are looking for, because it could confuse them. It’s not that they need to know what the specific latency score or jitter is or packet loss is. They just want to know whether the service they are being provided meets their needs, whether the service they are being provided can support Zoom calls or Video Relay Service. And that’s why it’s curious why we’re focused on providing the context, so we can inform customers, like accessibility groups, about the service plans and the speeds that meet their needs. And we don’t think customers should be confused and overwhelmed by misleading information and technical jargon.

1922 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: I suspect your answer would be the same for jitter and packet losses.

1923 MR. SHAIKH: And, of course. it gets worse as you add each. It just becomes more and more onerous, more and more complex, more and more confusing to add a score or metric for jitter or packet loss, over subscription ratio. The costs are significant in terms of how to test and validate that. We would have to inform our Customer Care Teams to speak competently about things like jitter and packet loss. That’s not something we would do. That doesn’t help us with our customer relationship.

1924 So, yes, we are adamantly opposed to those being added as performance metrics.

1925 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Now, in the description of your offers on internet, I don’t see any information about the contract duration. Is there a reason why this information is not provided up front? It must be somewhere in the client journey, but is there a reason why it’s not provided at first sight?

1926 MR. SHAIKH: Well, we comply with the Internet Code requirements about clarity of contract terms and providing a critical information summary at the time of sale.

1927 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Where there are offers or discounts advertised, we clearly indicate the length of the term. So, it might be that it is when you click through on a package that you are looking at that you would see that.

1928 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. I understand your position. You mentioned many times this morning and in your intervention that Rogers already provides the relevant information, that service providers understand consumers’ needs for information, and that ISPs make that information clear and easy to find.

1929 But as you know, the Telecommunications Act was amended to mandate the Commission to require ISPs to make available information that is in the public interest.

1930 Is it your position ‑‑ and this is just to make sure. Is it your position that what is done right now is enough to answer this new requirement of the law, or do you see anything more that could be improved or done?

1931 MR. SHAIKH: The legislation first applied to fixed broadband services, not wireless internet, as we’ve explained earlier. The legislation also provides the Commission with significant discretion in terms of what it does implement. I think that discretion is necessary, because when the legislation was drafted and considered, the cost and complexity of these obligations may not have been fully canvassed and understood. And I think that’s why we are having this public hearing, so you can gather information and sound evidence about the cost and complexity of adding additional performance metrics.

1932 The legislation does say typical upload/download speeds during peak periods for fixed broadband service providers. I think you also have to determine if that’s required beyond the speeds that we already disclosed, which actually reflect typical speeds.

1933 So like with Cogeco, what we already do already complies with the legislation. But if you were to go further and say there needs to be something about typical upload and download speeds, I think you want to make sure you approach that with a very light touch and apply flexibility in terms of how service providers choose to disclose that information to the customers. And I absolutely think no other performance metrics are necessary.

1934 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: As you may suspect, many intervenors do not agree with your position. And among them, the consumers associations argue that standardization would be useful to facilitate the understanding but also the ability to compare the offers between providers.

1935 I have to admit that after visiting a few ISP websites, it’s quite apparent that the information varies from one site to the other.

1936 So if the consumers have enough information with your site, let’s say, as you mentioned, do you think that they have enough to compare between your offer and the other ISPs? And I guess more generally, what is your position on the suggestion that the consumer should have better ways to compare offers between ISPs?

1937 MR. SHAIKH: Well, I understand the position of consumers, and I hope that they too will understand, as we’re providing evidence, that the costs of imposing these metrics could increase the cost to consumers or could force us to reduce our network investments, which would cause harm to consumers and would be inconsistent with the critical objectives of the Telecommunications Act.

1938 In terms of standardizing approaches, I also think that creates great risk. Cogeco spoke about this on the first day. You want providers to be innovating and competing in how they track customers, and it includes different speed tiers, different offerings. I don’t think you want to take that element of competition away from the market and force us into some standard rigid way of measuring and comparing service providers. Let us innovate and compete as network builders.

1939 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: You mentioned the cost. You just mentioned it. And in your intervention, you say that there is no evidence that the legislators understood the complexity of what they were requesting.

1940 As you know ‑‑ and I think it’s your case, but it was also Cogeco’s case ‑‑ we are asked to balance the cost versus the benefit of any measure that could be implemented. So can you help us understand more the complexity, since at first sight it appears that most of the information seems already available and displayed on your website? So, what more would have to be done to make this information available in a specific format?

1941 MR. SHAIKH: And more should not be done. You are right. Customers are provided with the information they need to make informed purchase decisions because of the operation of a highly functioning competitive market. You have to be very careful about regulatory intervention that undermines positive market outcomes. So, we welcome the opportunity in this hearing to better inform the conversation, as you say, didn’t take place when the legislation was drafted, to understand that the costs are significant.

1942 We don’t know exactly what’s being considered in terms of what performance metrics might be considered. Some of it would be cost prohibitive. Many of the proposals would mean where we have to reorient our investments, invest less in network performance to report on performance metrics that are meaningless to a customer. Spend more money on customer care, so our customer care agents are equipped to have conversations with customers about jitter and packet loss, something we absolutely do not want to do. The costs of implementing the measures being proposed in this hearing do not in any way justify the information that might be provided to customers, especially when it’s likely of no use to them.

1943 And I think as Cogeco pointed out again in their appearance, in the U.S. experience very few customers, I think 2 percent, actually engage with that information.

1944 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: I guess we ‑‑ and I understand what you’re saying; that you don’t exactly know what will be the requirement, and it’s hard for you to assess.

1945 But all we have received so far is that the costs will be high, and it will be at the expense of other initiatives.

1946 Maybe we lack a bit of detail on this in order to be able to balance the cost‑benefit question.

1947 The Commission is exploring the idea of a label, of course, but we are also exploring a range of options, a layer of standardization. As an example, the first layer would be mandatory display of some very basic information. The second layer could be specific placement with format requirement, but no label. The third layer would include a concise label on the internet site of the providers. And I guess the last layer would be the complete label with machine readable functionalities.

1948 In the levels that I just gave you, is there a place where we can draw a line, from your point of view, where it becomes too burdensome or too expensive to produce?

1949 MR. SHAIKH: Legislation doesn't require a broadband label. It requires you to consider the form and manner of any kind of disclosure. So, what is the threshold? We think the existing disclosures are sufficient.

1950 Any level of increased requirements would add exponential costs and burdens on our company at a time when we are already weighed down by significant regulatory costs and regulatory burdens.

1951 If I were to draw a line, I would say you should be satisfied with the fact that in a competitive market, we are already delivering information that customers need to make informed purchasing decisions.

1952 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: So, you would stick to layer one.

1953 MR. SHAIKH: That's correct.

1954 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. And what do you think of a different option ‑‑ and I understand that you would stick to layer one ‑‑ an option where it requires that some basic information is provided without any format or display requirement, but with an output or a feature available on your website that makes the data related to your offers machine readable?

1955 Would that be worse or better than requiring a label?

1956 MR. SHAIKH: Well, in terms of what's on our website, we already comply with requirements for accessible readable formats. So, I don’t think there is a need for anything additional there. Again, we don’t want there to be a broadband label. We don’t want there to be any additional requirements imposed upon us.

1957 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: So this wouldn't make any difference compared to requiring a label posted on your website in association with your product.

1958 This option wouldn’t be better.

1959 MR. SHAIKH: I don't understand it as an option in terms of what we’re choosing between here. I think we’re committed to complying with standards to make sure that our offers are transparent and readable for our customers.

1960 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Because machine readable information would be a way to facilitate the comparison between the offers of the different providers available in the market.

1961 MR. SHAIKH: Again, our position is customers are well informed and able to compare across service providers.

1962 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay, thank you.

1963 Now let's talk about speed. You seem to agree that typical peak period metric could be included in the information communicated to the client.

1964 What is a workable definition of typical speeds during a peak period that is feasible for ISP to report on and meaningful and useful for the consumer?

1965 Do you have any suggestion in this regard?

1966 MR. SHAIKH: I think we are largely agnostic to the definition of what the peak period is, if it’s 7:00 to 11:00 or 6:00 to 12:00. As we’ve said, our advertised speeds reflect our typical speeds.

1967 Damian, do you have views on this?

1968 MR. POLTZ: Yeah, I would agree for sure. Our typical speeds, our advertised speeds, are pretty much the same, even at peak hour. Right?

1969 I would also say that anything broad geography‑wise is much simpler to support and manage. If we get too granular, then it becomes too difficult to collect. Anything that requires any kind of active testing will also be difficult to collect.

1970 So if we have some flexibility in terms of how we collect it and manage it, and if it’s broad enough, because we provide the same experience on our fixed line networks across the country in all regions, that would be our easiest approach.

1971 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Should all ISPs report on the same peak period, or should it be adapted to what are the peak periods?

1972 MR. SHAIKH: Again, this is not the most important issue for us. I think you could define a peak period that’s standardized. So you could provide flexibility to service providers to define their own peak period.

1973 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: In terms of geographic granularity, do you have any thoughts to share on this?

1974 MR. SHAIKH: Strong views on that because we report nationally, and I think there’s been conversation about going extremely granular to the node or neighbourhood level, and that causes real costs and burdens.

1975 MR. POLTZ: Yes, absolutely, there is a strong feeling that a broader geographical reach is certainly extremely helpful, because again, any kind of granular approach will require more testing, potentially active testing, which is much harder to support and implement.

1976 And again, our speeds, typical and advertised, are the same whether across all of our regions. If we can’t support a speed in our broadband networks, then we don’t sell it.

1977 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay, I will come back on the measurement of your speed. But just before, coming back to the information displayed on your website, can you explain why you use the up to for upload speed but not for download speed in the way you display your offer?

1978 MR. SHAIKH: I don't know if that's the case. It may be the case. But I actually think we need flexibility in how we use up to language. I know that this has been raised over the course of the proceeding. I want to be very clear about why and when up to language is used.

1979 I’m concerned that you think there is an issue here with why we use up to language. You already had a SamKnows measuring broadband Canada study that confirms that we already reach or exceed our advertised speeds. So up to language is not used because we fall below that advertised speed. We typically reach or exceed that speed.

1980 Up to in some cases is necessary to make sure that customers understand that in some cases, limited cases, the advertised speed may not be achieved.

1981 Ciara, do you want to…?

1982 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Yes. So, I would say that when you click through to get more details on any given tier, you will see up to for download as well as upload.

1983 Furthermore, I think that the use of up to, it is a necessary caveat that businesses need from time to time.

1984 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: It is similar to the mention you indicate that speed varies, depending on technological capabilities.

1985 Regarding this mention that appears, are you referring to the technological capabilities of your network or the clients, or all of them?

1986 MR. POLTZ: I would say it's primarily on the clients’ side in terms of what the customer can experience. But there’s many factors that could impact their maximal achievable speed, the device they’re using, where they are in their home, the wi‑fi, interference on the wi‑fi, the capabilities, the amount of spectrum that they are using within the home for that connection, because everyone does generally over wi‑fi.

1987 And then, moving beyond that, there could be challenges in the service that they’re connecting to; there could be challenges anywhere on the internet that could cause them to have challenges.

1988 We had, with I think the Netflix boxing match that was ‑‑ you know, everyone was experiencing problems with ‑‑ our network was fine; right? It was the Netflix service, but of course people looked to our network to say, “Well, what happened? Why did it happen?” So, I think that’s a big part of it, is that end‑to‑end speed experience is so much more than just that last‑mile connection. And certainly, while things can occur there, in general at peak time, we do not have any issues on that side.

1989 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: So, you are saying you are delivering up to measures that you are advertising to the client?

1990 MR. POLTZ: Yes, to the home in general, absolutely, yes. Absolutely.

1991 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. Telus and Bell yesterday explained yesterday the methods and tools they are using to measure their speed ‑‑ the speed that they are delivering to the clients. I don’t know if you have followed the Commission; I am quite sure you did, so, can you tell us more about how you do on your site, and are your methods comparable to the ones that were presented by Telus and Bell?

1992 MR. POLTZ: Yes, absolutely. Yes, we listened to their discussion. We use very similar things. I should be clear that the vast majority of customers though will do their own speed tests with client‑based tests, which is a great representation of the experience that they’re getting. We do have the capability, when a customer chooses to do so, and on install, they can check their upload and download speed to the gateway, as well as the speed to all their devices in their home. So, we do have that capability.

1993 It is more challenging though when you move beyond that. Things like a latency jitter, packet loss ‑‑ those kinds of things are much more difficult to measure in those kinds of tests. So, I’m not sure all operators have the same kinds of capabilities. But certainly, we do have the ability to look at that kind of speed, but it’s on a case‑by‑case basis as the customer chooses to do so, and customers would do that if they ever encountered an issue. For us, we architect and build the network in such a way that we’re always delivering that speed, and we monitor with passive testing the capacity in the network, and that’s how we deal with any issues that arise. So, that’s generally how we manage the network, rather than relying on the customer‑based test, to tell us something that we would already know based on the monitoring of the network.

1994 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: You provide the customers with the tool to measure from the gateway, to measure the speed?

1995 MR. POLTZ: Yes. Yes.

1996 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: And do you do any proactive testing too? Or it is mainly based on the feedback you received from your clients?

1997 MR. POLTZ: We do some proactive testing but it is mostly in the lab or the development of the service, and then some testing occasionally from time to time, but we really do rely on the passive testing to tell us the quality of the network. So, we find that the active testing of download/upload speed is really based on the customers’ needs, or if they call in and they’re having an issue and we need to show them, right, those would be the kinds of times we do that kind of testing.

1998 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Post‑sale, when the customer has our services in the home, their app actually allows them to test their gateway at any given time, whether it be peak or non‑peak hours, and at that time, they can see that the signal is strong to all the devices in their home ‑‑ or not, and they are getting the speed that they have subscribed to. And if they don’t, they can contact us and we will get them to resolution on that.

1999 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. And if your approach is similar to Bell’s approach and Telus, do you think there is a way to standardize the methodology to test the speed, in order to have some kind of basic standards in the industry regarding what is advertised or the way we measure speed?

2000 MR. SHAIKH: No, I don't think that is necessary. I think that’s probably going a step too far, to ask for standardized approaches to anything among competing service providers. Then, I think, you’re into that realm where others have discussed you don’t really want to go, where you’ve got to send something to CISC to figure out what the standards are. If you did that, you would have to go to CISC. I don’t think it’s necessary or useful.

2001 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. And just to complete on this, in your opinion more globally, what level of measurements are required so that any reported matrices are useful for the customer? And as an example, if a customer wants to know the typical speed of internet services in their neighbourhood, what would be the minimum geographical area, the frequency of testing? Again, I understand that you are mainly relying on the clients’ own testing, but is there more that should be required or done?

2002 MR. SHAIKH: No. When we disclose typical upload/download speeds, we do so typically at a national level, and our typical speeds match our advertised speeds. Beyond that, you can’t impose upon individual service‑providers a requirement to do more granular testing. That would be too costly and onerous, and as Ciara and Damian just explained, once a customer has that product, they will be able test their own service.

2003 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. And you must have seen that we identified congestion as a notable cause of subscriber complaints. Can you explain to us how you measure congestions at Rogers?

2004 MR. SHAIKH: I am going to ask Damian to answer. There’s no precise measure of congestion and I want to make sure address over‑subscription ratio, because I know this was introduced as the Commission’s preliminary view that it was helpful, and we want to make sure you understand that that preliminary view is not correct. Over‑subscription ratio does not measure congestion; it does not provide any useful information to customers, and should not be used.

2005 Damian, I would like you to explain.

2006 MR. POLTZ: Sure thing. So, two. So, I will cover on both of those things.

2007 From the congestion perspective, we measure every single link or we look passively at every single link across our network. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of links every single day, and we especially look at them at peak hour, all the way from the core all the way down to the home and the neighbourhood. What we do is we have thresholds, so be it 40‑, 50‑, or 60‑percent usage at peak hour, and when the network hits those during that period ‑‑ during the highest period ‑‑ it will trigger an action to add more capacity or split the customers into multiple groups. We have to do that typically months or even a year ahead of time because it takes time to do these kinds of things. So we give ourselves lots of time, and the reason we have to give ourselves lots of time is because of these extremely high speed tiers that we’re offering.

2008 When you’re offering a gig or two gig or three gig to a neighbourhood as a speed tier, you need to make sure that you have that capacity at that peak hour. So, there’s a huge amount of headroom that we have to build into the network. Effectively, that means that we run a congestion‑free network on our fixed broadband networks, and we do not see that kind of congestion anymore. I mean, that’s something that perhaps 10 or 20 years ago was a real problem, but today, within our networks, that’s not something that we see because of the speed tiers that we provide. So, it makes congestion a very difficult thing to explain to customers, because it’s so exceedingly rare because of those things.

2009 On a similar vein, that oversubscription ratio is also very confusing to customers. It’s tempting to think that lower oversubscription ratio is better, but if you think about the networks, dial‑up or DSL had one‑to‑one oversubscription ratios. That doesn’t make them any better. If you look at the global leaders in terms of broadband, in places ‑‑ you know, we could take Singapore as an example ‑‑ everyone there is getting 3‑gig, 5‑gig, 10‑gig speeds. They would have much higher oversubscription ratios than we have here. So, you could say that higher is better because it means more efficient and effective network design, and it means you’re offering customers next‑generation, very advanced offerings.

2010 So, if we can’t agree on whether lower is better or higher is better, it’s simply impossible to explain to customers, as well as it means that there is no correlation whatsoever in our network in terms of oversubscription ratios and congestion. Congestion is a result of people, on average, using more of the capacity and using up all of that headroom in a network, which has very little or nothing to do with oversubscription. So, I think it’s very, very challenging to use that one, especially as a metric for congestion or for experience.

2011 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: And I understand you measure congestion at the node level, and you say that it’s not very problematic because you are offering high speeds and you don’t meet many problems. Is it true for all your networks?

2012 MR. POLTZ: Yes, absolutely. For our fixed broadband networks, it’s definitely true that we use the same exact metrics and the same points of alert. As soon as node ‑‑ or that area ‑‑ hits that, no matter where it is across our footprint, we will action something. Whether that’s a split or adding capacity or deploying new technology, that action is consistent and across our whole network.

2013 And I should also say, on the oversubscription ratio, I think it’s dangerous as well because adding something like oversubscription could disincentivize us from offering next‑generation experiences and higher speeds, because the best way to bring down that ratio is to not offer higher speeds. And I think that would be dangerous for Canada and for our customer experience. So, I think it’s another reason why you have to be careful there.

2014 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay. Thank you.

2015 I have no more questions. Thank you.

2016 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks. I will sneak in a few from the Chair.

2017 You have used the phrase “our typical speeds” a few times, especially in the construction “our typical speeds are the same as our advertised speeds,” or the same as or better. I’m not sure if it’s a dumb question or a really good question ‑‑ maybe both ‑‑ but when you say “our typical speeds,” what do you mean? What does “typical speeds” mean to you?

2018 MR. POLTZ: When I say “typical speed,” I mean the speed that you would achieve at any given time, especially in the peak hour. So, “typical speeds” is the speed you should expect when you go to run a speed test. And in my experience, almost all speed tests happen in that peak hour because that’s when people are using the internet. So, “typical” for me means a consistent speed you should expect.

2019 MR. SHAIKH: And I think it is correct, Damian, that typically customers are getting their advertised speeds throughout the day ‑‑ you know, at peak periods and throughout the day.

2020 MR. POLTZ: Correct, because we architect the network and we take action specifically at the peak hour. We architect for peak hour performance, and I think all operators of fixed broadband networks in Canada do the same.

2021 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. So, if a CRTC decision comes out compelling you to provide typical speeds during peak hours, how would you measure that? What number would you produce?

2022 MR. POLTZ: Well, our preference isn’t to do any kind of active testing, again, because that’s difficult to measure and can be difficult to implement consistently. The way that we monitor those kinds of things ‑‑ and I think it’s a standard ‑‑ is by looking at the passive capacity on the network, and ensuring that we can deliver it. So, that’s the way that we do it today, and we feel confident that’s the experience that we deliver on a typical basis.

2023 Again, there’s always nuances to this; there’s other factors that can cause challenges, and that’s why there is some room there. That’s why we see “typical” ‑‑ because you could have Wi‑Fi issues, you could have other problems, there could be something going on that’s outside of what is expected.

2024 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I want to jump to possible exclusions. So, you propose that fixed wireless should be excluded, and part of your justification in your opening remarks was essentially that there are lots of factors that can affect the performance of a fixed wireless speed. Isn't the fact that there are lots of factors that could affect the customer’s experience exactly why we should have detailed reporting on fixed wireless?

2025 MR. SHAIKH: Thank you for the opportunity discuss it, since it’s obviously an important issue for us, and I, with respect, want to start with an important correction. We don’t offer fixed wireless; we offer a 5G home internet service. It’s not tied to our fixed broadband service; it’s a nomadic service. So, our starting position is that it’s not a service that’s captured by the legislation.

2026 I also want to, if you will indulge me, talk a little bit about the policy that informs this conversation, because I was listening to M.P. Mazier on the first day, to understand his thinking. And I actually think we share the same goal. We are united in purpose. We want to deliver affordable access to high‑quality and reliable services to rural, remote, and Indigenous communities.

2027 And I think this is a case where there is a real risk of over‑regulation, because we all understand that as an objective ‑‑ the CRTC, government, industry stakeholders know the importance of closing the digital divide. The market has provided a solution. In this case, Rogers has taken a leadership role to launch 5G home internet ‑‑ a solution that helps close that digital divide because of the opportunity it gives us to enter those under‑served communities.

2028 So, I want to make sure that the drafters of the legislation understand ‑‑ because I think we’re aligned in that objective, they need to understand that introducing what’s being considered here, for something that’s not captured by the legislation, could impose costs and burdens upon Rogers in the infancy of its launch of this product, that actually undermine achievement of that critical public policy objective.

2029 This is a real risk where the market has worked to produce a market outcome that achieves critical public policy objectives, and now we’re in a hearing where we’re considering whether the regulator  ‑‑ I don’t want to get ahead, because I’m hoping you come to the right solution, but I don’t want as an outcome of this proceeding that after the market has solved the public interest problem, regulations might undermine our solution. That’s the exact opposite of what was intended by the legislation; it’s inconsistent with the objectives of the Telecommunications Act, it’s inconsistent with the policy direction, and it’s inconsistent with your mandate.

2030 Now, that’s a policy position, and it’s important to us, and it also is critical about the case we’re making for relying on facilities‑based competition. You should be relying on innovative network builders to build, to compete, to service Canadians, including in under‑served communities. That should be the policy foundation in many proceedings, including in this one.

2031 Now, I needed to get that on the record. I know you have a specific question about the nature of ‑‑ and let me be clear ‑‑ the nature of wireless home internet.

2032 Howard, do you want to discuss that?

2033 MR. SLAWNER: Yes. Thank you, Dean. So, you are absolutely correct. These factors are present. It doesn’t change the fact that we are very big, strong proponents of wireless internet. We think it’s a terrific service that’s growing around the world and has massive potential for Canadians to close the digital divide, but we can’t fail to recognize the fact that there are these variables that affect wireless internet that don’t affect the wireline internet.

2034 For example, when we build the wireline connection from our network to a home, we have a very good understanding of the level of speed and performance that home will get. But with a wireless connection, there are certain other variables that will influence the actual end performance, for example, how far you are away from the cell tower; are there any obstructions between your home and the cell tower; you know, are there trees or buildings; are you in a canyon, whether natural or concrete? These are all going to influence the actual end‑result that the customer is going to get.

2035 And also, it’s important, as Dean mentioned, it is a portable device. Fixed wireless, as you mentioned, is a misnomer now; right? You don’t fix it to your roof like you used to; you don’t put it to a treetop or a balcony. Customers put it anywhere in their home. We don’t actually know where that is. It could be someone in a really good place; it might be in a really, really bad place.

2036 So, it’s impossible really for us to understand those particular circumstances for that individual customer. So, the only person who really understands the circumstances is that customer when they put the device in their home. So, that’s why it’s very important in how we communicate the quality and level of service to our customers.

2037 And if I can turn to Ciara, she can explain to you how we actually communicate all these variables and factors to help the customer understand what they’re buying.

2038 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Thank you. With our 5G home internet, we actually don't lean into speed tiers the way we do with our wireline broadband. We talk more about other features of the service. We talk about its mobility. We talk about its easy plug‑and‑play setup, and also risk‑free ‑‑ you can return it any time if it doesn’t work in your home or in the circumstances of where your home is. So, because of its technological differences, we market it differently.

2039 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.

2040 I will stop there and go to Commissioner Abramson next, please.

2041 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks. And let me actually pick up where Vice‑Chair Scott left off, because I didn't completely understand the answer. You’ve talked in your submissions about excluding, I think, fixed wireless access, and you’ve explained to us that the type of in‑home wireless access you provide is not fixed wireless access. So, is your position that we ought to do the opposite of what Bell said, and they want us to focus on satellite and fixed wireless access. You’re suggesting that we should exclude fixed wireless access? Or that we should exclude all wireless access, including the nomadic, non‑fixed wireless access which is how you’ve described your service?

2042 MR. SHAIKH: Again, I think we should retire the term ‘fixed wireless’. In our case, we know about our product. It’s 5G home internet. It’s not tied to a fixed broadband service, and is not captured by the legislation.

2043 In terms of the submissions by Bell and Telus, which I’d like to address, and more Bell, because actually, I actually thought we agree with a lot of what Bell was saying yesterday and I think we appreciated their candour and transparency, and we were very much aligned with them on the issue of facilities‑based competition and investment. And that’s why this is a real, concrete example of the benefits of relying on network builders to build, to find new ways to innovate and expand into additional markets rather than reselling on each other’s networks, or profiting off the investments of other competitors.

2044 This is exactly what Bell and Rogers and the majority of the industry has spoken about in terms of the importance of supporting facilities‑based competition. And I hope it’s not the case that Bell and Telus simply want to use regulation to distort competitive outcomes by imposing upon us additional costs and burdens on our 5G home internet service that creates a market distortion and affects our ability to compete and serve customers. I hope that’s not the case, but if you did that, it would be the case. So, I’m strongly against that specific position of Bell.

2045 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: And just so that I am clear in my head, I have taken from what you are saying that you’re not taking a position on how we ought to approach fixed wireless access, something you don’t provide. You’re telling us that nomadic wireless in‑home access is something that wouldn’t, for instance, fall under our new obligations under the Act. Is that fair?

2046 MR. SHAIKH: Well, we are proposing a very light‑handed regulatory approach across all service providers, to be clear.

2047 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Fair enough.

2048 MR. SHAIKH: We think there should be very limited intervention in terms of what’s imposed upon broadband service providers. The legislation speaks to typical upload and download speeds, and that’s it. And there’s consideration of other performance metrics. We think it should be limited. We would not be opposed if you excluded both fixed wireless and our 5G home internet service, which is not a fixed wireless product.

2049 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: No, thank you for that. That is very helpful, and we do want to make sure we have a clear record.

2050 We have heard the suggestion from some intervenors that one of the ways in which we can fulfil the obligation to cause Canadian carriers to make information available about service quality metrics during peak periods might involve disclosure of the physical medium through which the service is being provided ‑‑ whether it’s being provided over fibre or FTTP, or whatever it is.

2051 What’s your view on what that could look like? And I understand that your basic position is that none of this ought to be offered, and that we can fulfil our obligations by mandating no service quality metrics during peak periods. But in the event that we don’t adopt that position, would you be comfortable, for instance, with a situation in which service providers had to specify whether it was, for instance, fibre or cable or some other medium? What would that look like?

2052 MR. SHAIKH: Well, you are not talking about a performance metric, and I think Telus tried to confuse you about whether performance is reflected by the technology. I think we made it clear, Opensignal said our hybrid fibre coax network was the most reliable network in Canada. So, there’s no performance gap between technologies, and I think this is Telus’ efforts to confuse and mislead customers and the Commission.

2053 I don’t know that there’s any need to disclose the technology. We already actually disclose the technology on the face of the website, and the customers know when they come to Rogers Cable that it’s a cable network and provided with cable broadband, so I don’t think there’s any confusion about that. We also, as you know, focus on our DOCSIS network, but we also have an FTTP product, and there’s no difference in terms of the performance between FTTP and our other network.

2054 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks. No, that’s helpful.

2055 One of the service quality metrics during peak periods that has been bandied about and that’s included in the FCC broadband labels is latency. Can you fill in a little bit more about why latency is not relevant for consumers?

2056 MR. POLTZ: Yes, absolutely.

2057 As we kind of already said today, latency in that last mile, which is really what we’re talking about here, between the home and the core is already imperceptible to any customer, it’s so low, and it’s such a small part of the overall latency equation that I think adding it would just cause confusion because such small, you know, millisecond differences, single, double millisecond differences really are not relevant and could just drive further confusion and take away from the overall objective here, which is to educate customers and help them make choices.

2058 The latency ecosystem is much larger than just that last mile ecosystem. That’s, you know, two, three, four percent of the latency that customers see when you incorporate wi‑fi and that end‑to‑end network latency. And what’s most important is that we are incentivized to improve that end‑to‑end experience for customers. That’s the piece that we focus on today and we should continue to focus on.

2059 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: The thrust of much of what we’re talking about has been observed internet performance rather than what’s been referred to as theoretical measures that relate only to the internal network of the provider. You’re talking about latency on what you call the last mile which sounds like it relates to the internal network. The measurements that I understand we’ve heard proposed from others would relate to, for instance, the overall latency experience that customers have, understanding that every customer is visiting different parts of the internet and so on, but aggregating to create a sort of average.

2060 So I guess when I ask about latency and it being relevant to the end user, that’s part of what I’m asking about. Does that ‑‑ will that change your answer?

2061 MR. POLTZ: Not really because it's very difficult to understand that kind of latency. The kind of user experienced latency, that’s the kind of latency that only the customer would experience, so you would need some kind of customer test, which is exceedingly difficult to do. If you think about how latency was measured in the past with “Sam Knows” and other initiatives, it was measured from the modem to that first test server, which was typically within the city. And that’s the kind of only reliable and standardized way, unfortunately, to measure latency. But that turns into a last mile latency test, right.

2062 That latency of how long does it take to Google, how long does it take to get to your game server, that is on a case‑by‑case basis, and I think the customers who are interested in that, it’s only gamers, they would be already aware and they know how to test it themselves, and it's so dependent on where you’re going.

2063 One game server will have completely different latency than another game server and that’s an area where gamers, I think, spend a lot of time thinking about.

2064 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Is this the sort of thing that you would gather information about as part of your passive telemetry?

2065 MR. POLTZ: Unfortunately, no, because, again, with latency and even more so with jitter and with packet loss, that is an experience test. That is the kind of test you have to take at the device because it’s measuring how long it took something you sent to get and come back to you. We don’t have that visibility.

2066 When you’re looking from the passive test side, it’s very difficult to divine, that kind of experience.

2067 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: So I’m trying to feel my way, too, because, obviously, we’re trying to look at different options and possibilities. We’re building out a record for that purpose. And so I’m trying to understand whether there’s anything in the passive measurement, which I understand most large ISPs engage in, which I understand is fairly extensive, which I understand is built into most standard router operating systems, which I understand is aggregated up at fairly high levels as well as being disaggregated at low levels when you zoom in on a particular user or node, and trying to determine whether there’s anything in that that can assist us in thinking about these sort of service quality metrics.

2068 I suppose you’ll tell me that there’s nothing to be seen there, but I wouldn’t mind some colour on it to ‑‑ in the event that’s not the case.

2069 MR. SHAIKH: Yeah. And Damian can try, but I think it’s challenging to put the type of colour on that question that you’re seeking. And I know you had a conversation earlier in this hearing, Commissioner Abramson, about going to CIST and thinking you’re talking about those types of questions and standardizing across the industry and bringing a common approach and making sure you’re getting it right.

2070 First and foremost, you understand we don’t think you should do it. It’s an onerous task that’s not worth the outcome that informs Canadians.

2071 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Your message has been clear.

2072 MR. SHAIKH: I know. But if you did do it, you’d have to send it to CIST to make sure that it wasn’t done incorrectly, and I don’t think you need to, I don’t think you should.

2073 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thank you.

2074 One last question, and you won’t be surprised to hear it, but I’ve been asking folks whether ‑‑ and you alluded to this in your presentation, obviously, whether the inclusion of pricing and term information, the critical information summary, can alleviate the potential need for making that transparent through things like nutritional labels. And so the question I’ve been asking folks there is about the either availability or potential availability of the critical information summary, and I would imagine the contract that includes that CIS in the customer portal so that it’s persistently available to them.

2075 What is the current situation and what is low‑hanging fruit, I suppose?

2076 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Sure. We provide the critical information summary at the time of sale with the contract and at any time the customer wants it, they can contact us and we’ll make it available to them. Our app, the same place where customers can find their tests for their services, is also a place that they can go in and find out the products they’re subscribed to and the price of those products as well as the length of the term.

2077 And so those things are available. It’s not as exhaustive as the critical information summary, but the basics are there.

2078 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks.

2079 And I suspect there may be an RFI coming to further dig on that.

2080 Those are my questions, Mr. Vice‑Chair.

2081 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks very much, Commissioner.

2082 Let's go to Commissioner Desmond next, please.

2083 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Good morning. I just have really one question I wanted to follow up on.

2084 Looking at your opening statement at paragraph 25, you talk about how mandating a label cluttered with other highly technical performance data would only overwhelm the average customer. So just before your presentation, we heard from Dr. McKelvey, who talked about the importance of educating the customer, having ‑‑ maybe it’s a process by which the customer becomes better informed about things like jitter and latency. And what the customer has learned through marketing efforts is uploads and download speeds, but the customer needs to be better educated so that they can shop for the plan that better suits their needs.

2085 So why not move forward ‑‑ instead of suggesting that the customer doesn’t need highly technical information, why not move forward in educating customers so that they have better information, more information, you know, as the market evolves?

2086 MR. SHAIKH: We’re actually aligned to some extent with that objective of better informing customers, not just about price and speed, but also reliability. We actually had a session. We don’t think customers are better informed by jitter, packet loss, latency and it would be a great effort to try to explain that to them, it’d be a great effort to explain to our customer care teams how to explain that to them. I’ll repeat what I said earlier, is we heard from BWC. They just want to understand what their product does in plain language.

2087 And we’ve had discussions about this, about how to better provide contextual information to our customers.

2088 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: To Dean's point, we agree that customers need more than speed to understand what their tiers of service can do. That is why, you know, ahead of being asked or mandated, we think that adding in contextual information is important. We think it should be in plain language, it should be easily relatable activities, and we also think that it should explain the number of devices as well as the type of activities, and we do that really transparently. Being transparent about what the services can do is important to us as customers try to decide on what tier of service they need.

2089 I think that’s it.

2090 MR. POLTZ: Maybe I can just top up to say that one of the challenges with education is that we would disagree with the first intervenor today on things like over‑provision, right ‑‑ or over‑subscription ratios, sorry. And in that case, that requires a lot of discussion and a lot of debate and if we can’t even agree on whether it’s good or bad, that’s a real challenge.

2091 Similarly, the whole discussion around this last mile latency, right, is another challenge. If there is debate about it, it can be a real challenge to explain.

2092 MR. SHAIKH: Make no mistake; we think we have a reliability advantage, and we want to compete for customers on various dimensions of competition, price, speed and reliability. We don’t think there’s any need to mandate this. The market is already forcing us to do this. It’s forcing ‑‑ it’s compelling us to better inform our customers about the reliability of our service.

2093 This is a good market outcome and you should rely on the market to produce that outcome.

2094 MS. BEAUCHEMIN: Just to add to that, mandating the contextual information that we give customers, it is rigid, and their needs online are changing all the time. And so, you know, we talk about ‑‑ today we talk about streaming and video calls, but it might have been surfing in the past. We want to be able to stay current with what customers are doing to explain to them that the things that they are trying to do, activities online, are capable at different speed tiers.

2095 THE CHAIRPERSON: Let's close off the questioning with Commissioner Naidoo.

2096 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Hi there. Thanks so much.

2097 You say the information provided to consumers is already adequate, in your view, but you’ve probably seen that we’ve had participants in this proceeding, especially groups representing persons with hearing disability, who say that they’re having difficulty finding services that truly meet the needs ‑‑ their needs on a daily basis.

2098 So with that in mind, what improvements do you think that you could make to the standard information that you offer to your subscribers to help them better understand the capabilities of the systems ‑‑ sorry, of the service offerings that they signed up for?

2099 Basically, how would you improve the information you give them to help them figure out the service offering that matches exactly what they’re looking for?

2100 MR. SHAIKH: Yes, thank you, Commissioner Naidoo. And that’s exactly the discussion we’ve been having and, as I mentioned, you know, the discussion followed the appearance of the DWCC when they made those comments.

2101 We think we are doing a very good job in terms of making sure customers understand the services provided. We want to make sure we do our job to explain to persons with disabilities how the existing plans will meet their needs to make sure that they understand they can rely on our services for video relay service and Zoom calls and the other things that were discussed.

2102 I also think in some of their submissions they were looking for, you know, a basic service plan with, you know, 50‑10 speeds and latency below 50 milliseconds. Like those plans will meet their needs. We absolutely need, as an industry, to continue ‑‑ because we already are, but to continue to do a good job to meet the needs of persons with disabilities and be open and transparent about how our plans meet their needs.

2103 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you.

2104 THE CHAIRPERSON: Great. Thanks, again, for your participation in this process, including appearing today and answering our questions.

2105 We’ll turn it back to you for a final thought.

2106 MR. SHAIKH: Thank you, Vice‑Chairman Scott.

2107 We actually believe that all intervenors in this proceeding as well as the Commission and the authors of Bill C‑288 are strongly aligned in terms of what the most important objective is for our industry. We want to ensure affordable access to high‑quality, reliable and resilient telecommunications services across Canada, including in rural, remote and Indigenous communities. That’s from the Telecom Act.

2108 We also want Canadians to be well informed when selecting their service provider as well as the internet plan that best meets their needs.

2109 We may differ a little on the best path forward. Our hope is that we’ve demonstrated that the cost and complexity of some of the measures under consideration is prohibitive. If imposed, they would greatly undermine the core objectives of network investment and closing the digital divide, and they risk misleading and confusing customers, the opposite of what the legislation is intended to achieve.

2110 They are also unnecessary because market forces already compel carriers to be transparent about the exceptional quality of the services we offer using easy‑to‑understand plain language which is consistent with the Internet Code. For that reason, if the Commission determines that there is a need for improved disclosure of typical upload and download speeds during peak periods, which is the language of the legislation, we strongly submit that the requirements must be minimally intrusive. Therefore, no other performance metrics are needed. The requirements should be limited to pre‑sale.

2111 Carriers should have the flexibility to determine the most effective approach to communicating this information and, consistent with the legislation, which defines fixed broadband services, the requirements should not apply to nomadic wireless home internet.

2112 We strongly believe that there is sound evidence now in this proceeding that a light‑handed approach is consistent with the objectives of the Telecom Act and the policy direction, which favour efficiency, innovation and increased reliance on market forces as well as proportionate regulatory measures.

2113 Thank you. We look forward to seeing some of you next week.

2114 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

2115 We will take a break and be back at 11:05.

‑‑‑ Suspension à 10 h 51

‑‑‑ Reprise à 11 h 06

2116 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

2117 We will now hear the presentation from Sam Hudson, who is appearing virtually.

2118 When you are ready, you may begin.

Présentation

2119 MR. HUDSON: Thank you.

2120 Good morning, Members of the Commission. I will say this is my first time presenting in a federal hearing, so bear with me, but thank you for allowing me to speak.

2121 So I’m going to be taking a bit of a different approach compared to some of the other intervenors because I honestly didn’t know what to expect. So I’m going to be looking at several common ISP provider shopping experiences. I just, very similar to one of the Commission Members, went and looked at their website looking at some online comparison tools that already exist in the space of a possible standardized template and then also looking at an example of an ISP information template.

2122 Next slide, please.

2123 So looking at this first one here, looking at Rogers consumer experience just like Googling “Rogers internet”, that’s what I did, went to the first page. You know, there’s not much to see on their page. You just see mobile and internet. That’s where my ears were drawn.

2124 Next slide, please.

2125 So looking at the internet dropdown, I immediately see there’s like three or four different hits for actual internet. You have to shop all internet, 5G home internet, Xfinity internet, internet and home TV. And this is kind of in the standard for when I’ve been shopping for internet is there’s like multiple different options and it requires a fair amount of research. Like people, I just want internet.

2126 I would say on average consumers don’t know the difference between each of them. They just are trying to find a plan to fit their needs.

2127 Next slide, please.

2128 Looking at the first selection of plans, immediately there’s a couple of things that stick out to me. Just the variance of the plans, looking at the price, that kind of thing, you see the download speeds that don’t have the “up to” lifted, as Commissioner Pacquette pointed out earlier. There are no upload speeds listed at this point in the selection of the plans, and that’s something I’ll get into.

2129 Next slide.

2130 So here, once you actually select a plan and go into the details, the appearance changes. You’re presented with two different versions of the website. You have a 24‑month term or a monthly version.

2131 So when you’re looking at the monthly version, you end up seeing higher costs than if you’re looking at the 24‑month term because, you know, you’re being locked into a term so they’re going to offer you a better deal. But people that are just trying to ‑‑ if they are looking for like the lowest visible number, they’re going to end up locked into some form of term.

2132 Next slide, please.

2133 And then this is just showing that difference in that monthly value where people that’s like, “Oh, I just want to do month to month”, but the cost is actually higher than being locked into a two‑year contract.

2134 Next slide, please.

2135 So when you’re looking at the actual details of the plan, you’ll see immediately there are notations beside each of the different information metrics on the plan, so whether it’s unlimited usage, download speeds up to 250, upload speeds up to, et cetera, nowhere on this page, like on this banner when you’re looking at that, do they explain what those numbers are.

2136 They’re actually on the previous page all the way at the bottom. You have to bring up a detailed information where these notations are actually listed.

2137 Next slide, please.

2138 Okay. So we’re moving on to Bell now, and with Bell, it ‑‑ very similar, it’s just you have like Fibe internet, Fibe internet plans, wi‑fi and rural internet.

2139 I had a couple of issues with this just looking at their presentation is wi‑fi, like that’s not straightforward to me because wi‑fi is provided by your router inside your home. It’s not necessarily ‑‑ it’s counter‑intuitive to like you’re buying internet so that you have wi‑fi in your home, but I guess some consumers can see that as synonymous with your internet. And then also the rural internet section is something that strikes me is how does a consumer know when they’re looking at this it’s just am I a rural internet consumer. Like what is the threshold for that? What is the categorization for that? How ‑‑ what information tells a consumer that, hey, I am actually a fixed wireless rural consumer versus somebody that is going to be on fibre or cable, something that is more metropolitan in the urban built‑up areas.

2140 Next slide, please.

2141 Looking at Bell’s offerings, immediately something I noticed that was nice to see is that their unlimited does not have a caveat. There's no like, superscript number or notation for their unlimited, whereas Rogers did have a notation. And in that notation text they listed lots of different aspects around, different plans have different bandwidth caps and other things like that, but I couldn't find any specific information.

2142 But unlimited by definition is either unlimited or not. Like, you either have a bandwidth cap and either you're throttled after that point, or you have overcharges, or it is truly unlimited. There should be no in between.

2143 So with Bell, you have a very similar thing, it's just like you're looking at your total download speeds. They do list their upload speeds. They don't advertise the “up to” lingo in this page. It may be listed in notation.

2144 Next slide, please.

2145 So this is clicking on one of the pins specifically and looking at it. I will say with Bell, most of the notations were explained on the page. If you were to scroll down, there is a section that explains in detail all the notations. I've double checked to make sure that all of the numbers listed as notations were represented in the definitions, in the details.

2146 Something with this page that struck me is the redundancy of the pricing scheme. So what people want to know is, what am I getting? What speed am I getting? What is the service I'm getting for how much per month?

2147 And their pricing breakdown, I found extremely confusing because it just goes like, you know, debit, credit, debit, credit, debit, credit, because they are literally doing, like one time modem until fee of $199 and immediately discounting that again. Where people want to know the bottom line number so that they can be comparable to other ISPs. Because when you are looking at effectively a table of discounts, it becomes confusing and it makes it difficult to compare versus other ISPs.

2148 Next slide, please.

2149 So this was ‑‑ I just plugged in my address, that's why part of it is censored, because I was trying to understand. Okay, just like if I was actively shopping for internet to replace the current internet service provider, what would I end up getting?

2150 And here is something that my current provider offers Gigabit speed. My current package is 1,000 megabit per second down, 50 megabits per second up. Yet, because community is a Rogers community and the infrastructure is owned by Rogers, and therefore only Rogers and their subsidiaries can operate in this community, if I wanted to go with Bell it would be a crippled plan that is nowhere near what I can currently get through Rogers and their subsidiaries, or I would have to go with satellite.

2151 Next slide, please.

2152 Looking into Telus, their landing page is very similar. It's like they offer lots of different products. You can find Internet relatively quickly on their landing page.

2153 Next slide please.

2154 Looking into the plans, very similar kind of presentation here. They have a cost that's scratched out and then there's a lower cost. The main thing that I saw here was the fact that the toggle for “I am a Telus mobility or Koodo customer” creates a discount and it is defaulted to on. So it is showing you a lower number that you will get unless you are already a customer, and in some cases even if you're already an existing customer, a two year term is going to be required to sign up to actually get that price.

2155 Next slide, please.

2156 And then when I tried to actually look up my address, Telus isn't available in my community, yet Rogers offers I think two and five gigabit speeds my community, but other providers ‑‑ other large providers ‑‑ this isn't even talking about smaller ISPs that are trying to compete in this space. These are the other monopolies that they can't operate in my community either because they don't own the last mile infrastructure.

2157 Next slide, please.

2158 And so, this kind of gets into the space of ‑‑ sorry. The space of the standardized templates for broadband, and the fact that I've heard from other intervenors that they're saying these templates are not needed, they're not necessary.

2159 And there are already products in this says that were created out of necessity. The first one is a platform called WhistleOut. They are a search engine designed to aggregate and collate mobile and internet plans across North America, and they do exactly that.

2160 Next slide, please.

2161 Looking at an example here for Ottawa, it very clearly, and the provider agnostically presents information in an easy to read understandable format that shows your download, your bandwidth cap, the upload is also noted there, and your monthly cost, full stop. Like, that’s it.

2162 This is the comparable standard. When I'm going to look for internet service plans and to see if there is anything better, this is generally where I start. It is trying to identify who all operates in my neighborhood, in my community, and what are they offering at what cost.

2163 Next slide, please.

2164 Plan Hub is also another platform that operates in this space and operate across Canada allowing aggregation of all kinds of information. This one also shows you the monthly cost, the upfront payment, but also for the two‑year cost.

2165 So that two‑year term contract was very similar across providers, and I feel like that is something else people want to know. It’s like, okay, I'm paying this monthly right now, but after any promotions or contracts expire, what does it increase to? Because it will. Like, what is that going to increase in two years? Am I going to have to look for another ISP or like, switch to a different promotion plan to maintain the current costs that I have?

2166 Next slide, please.

2167 So internet plan key metrics. Now, I'm a gamer, I have been for a very long time, as long as I can remember. And I have also ‑‑ like, I do media servers in my basement, I do all kinds of stuff that require internet connectivity. And so, for me, download speed and upload speed, of course they're just default, you need to understand those and they need to be very clear when somebody is shopping for an Internet plan, because those are the key, you know, it's just that you don't have Internet without those.

2168 Bandwidth cap it's also exceedingly important, especially as things increase. 10 years ago the size of game to download from Steam was ‑‑ it could be 10 gigs, it could be 8 gigs. Titles now are blossoming up to 100 gigabits of data, 100 plus gigabits of data to download these titles, and that's compressed. So bandwidth cap is exceedingly important.

2169 So if that unlimited has a notation and it says that it is not in fact unlimited in certain situations, that is very critical information and needs to specified very clearly there's something is unlimited or not. Regardless of whether once you exceed that you become throttled or you are subjected to overage fees per gigabit.

2170 Total monthly cost, I mean that's the bottom line, that's what people can afford or cannot afford and that will very much determine what plan they go with.

2171 Infrastructure type and also important. Whether you're talking about coaxial cable, whether you're talking about fibre, whether you're talking about line of sight wireless, or a cell hub as Roger mentioned previously. The 5G hubs that are increasing in popularity in areas where fixed ‑‑ sorry ‑‑ the fixed wireless line of sight devices are not suitable, they are increasing in popularity.

2172 Next slide, please.

2173 So looking at a possible display template, something like this would include download in a standardized unit, whether it is gigabit per second as we move further and further away from megabit speeds into gigabit speeds. Same with upload, it should represented in, I would say the same unit.

2174 Bandwidth cap, what your actual gigabit limit is, if there is one. And then looking at overages, dollars per gigabit over your bandwidth cap is important. Because that ‑‑ you hear the horror stories of people, you know, their kids started downloading stuff, or they started streaming stuff, they go over their overage, and very quickly they can rack up a very large bill that is a surprise.

2175 And then of course the infrastructure type, whether you are on fibre, or cable, fixed wireless, that kind of thing. That stuff should be visible at point of sale when people are selecting a plan. And then of course, the total monthly cost should be applicable.

2176 And that again with the total monthly cost it is relevant. It's like the total monthly cost during that first two‑year term for 24‑month term is important, because that likely will go up after the promotion or the contracts end, and that should be clearly, clearly, communicated.

2177 In the case of, I think it was Bell, if you want to get out of the two‑year contract, they did cite how much per month you will need to pay to buy out with that contract, and it was not cheap.

2178 Rogers on the other hand, cited the two‑year term, but I believe in their detailed information they did not show the cost of getting out of the contract. So I found that a little disingenuous and unfortunate that they don't release that information, especially considering the people that need the internet badly and are just trying to find the lowest number they are going to select that 24 month term because it is the lowest cost to get a better speed.

2179 Next slide, please.

2180 Other considerations. So how to handle equipment rental, modem, router, combo boxes, all the stuff that comes with it. Like, you get installation fees, you get the rental of their combo modem router boxes that they supply to consumers. I don't know if that should be factored into the monthly costs. Sometimes they discount it as part of a promotion, sometimes it is rolled into the monthly cost because sometimes it does not, or it is a separate line item.

2181 I mentioned installation fees, and then of course the ISP promotions discounts. So all the crossed out sales numbers, that ‑‑ you know, it's just like the plan says 120 bucks, and then it's crossed out, it goes down to like 60, then you look at all of the different line items. Especially in Bell’s case where they're just like 199, and then it's like discounted 199, there's like 40 discounted, $15 of that.

2182 I just ‑‑ as somebody who I consider myself technologically literate, I found that very confusing and I would always have to help my parents shop for internet because they would be lost. Ever since I was 15, I was handling the internet and ISP interactions for our household because my parents just did not have information, the education to understand what they were being told.

2183 So that is kind of why you're looking at a standardized labeling system, which is why I think that is so, so important, because it is necessary. There are already platforms and products operating in that space, because it was created out of necessity for people to understand what they were looking at. And ultimately, that's why I think that this is wholeheartedly necessary, and I applaud the CRTC and the Commission for actually moving in this direction.

2184 Talking on oversubscription ratio for a second, the radio should be clearly communicated within the proposed template. And if the ISPs disagree that oversubscription ratio is not ‑‑ it does not communicate what the CRTC’s intention is, then I would ask the ISPs, what is And how can that information be publicized?

2185 Because when you are an existing consumer of an ISP, I would say you should be able to look at the density of the network and be able to understand if a competitor would have a better, as they said, amount of overhead to handle peak periods.

2186 But also on that oversubscription ratio thing, and also a couple other things the interveners said, the simplified language talks about the devices per household. Not all devices are equal, not all their connections are equal, all the phones are a different age, etcetera. And so that number of devices metric is assuming equal usage per device and equal connection speed per device, so it is an estimate at best.

2187 I think that concludes my presentation and I will move forward to questions.

2188 THE CHAIRPERSON: That's great. Thank you so much, Mr. Hudson. You applauded us for moving in this direction. I’d like to applaud you for participating in our process as an individual.

2189 You said it was your first time doing so. I remember my first time doing a hearing, and you were much more composed than I was. And I think your participation this week has really added, you know, a refreshing and a valuable perspective to the hearing as well.

2190 So with that I will turn it over Commissioner Abramson is going to kick off our questioning.

2191 MR. HUDSON: Absolutely.

2192 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks, and Mr. Hudson, thanks for being with us.

2193 It's interesting, during your presentation I was thinking that what you were looking for was sort of in the nature of a code of practice so that ISPs be sure to put the fine print on the same page as the messages referring to it with the little numbers and so on. But you’ve also expressed enthusiasm about nutritional labels. So as a standardized way of display information, or removing discretion I suppose, from the ISP as to how they display it at all.

2194 So let me start there. Is it necessary to completely standardize everything through nutritional labels, or as some of interveners have suggested, would it be enough to provide a sort of, code of practice, or rules about how to be clear, and perhaps what information to be sure to include on websites advertising offers for broadband?

2195 MR. HUDSON: That is a complex question. The nutritional labels are a move in the right direction. I think it increases transparency and clarity to the consumer.

2196 If the ISPs could be made to, and enforced to, communicate information in a very clear and comparable way between providers, I would say that the label would be redundant at that point. But at this time, the way that I accessed these websites within past couple of weeks trying to ‑‑ pretending that I was looking for a new internet plan for my home, I think the level is still very much necessary at this time.

2197 Because as they have said, that allowing them to communicate information to their consumers and run their web pages per the existing legislation and policy, it is not clear to consumers when they're trying to shop between them. Because the page experiences are different, the notations, the way that they actually publish their information is different. And using a label to create a comparable source of information, I think, is still the best way forward at this time.

2198 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: You mentioned sites like WhistleOut and Plan Hub, how important are they? And is that something that we should have in mind when we think about what we're doing here?

2199 MR. HUDSON: I definitely see a lot of references when I am kind of, Googling around and shopping for internet plans. And I see a lot of references of people, whether you're looking at Twitter, whether you're looking at Reddit, whether you're looking at other web forums.

2200 A lot of people refer to sites like Plan Hub and WhistleOut because they're easier to compare. I would definitely say they have a role in the space currently, but they're highlighting a gap, and I think that Bill C‑288, and also this standardized label, will increase the coverage of that gap.

2201 I'm not saying it’s the perfect solution, but it will create comparable template that makes it easier for people to understand between different service plans. Also, per some of the discussion earlier in the hearing, there is a level of consumer education that also needs to go on here.

2202 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Can you tell us more about what information you think consumers need? You know, and I saw the display on the second last slide I think you had, suggesting what that might look like.

2203 And you know, we spent much of time talking about ‑‑ and it's something that the changes to the Telecommunications Act require us to talk about ‑‑ service quality metrics during peak periods. And I notice you didn't have some of those metrics, like, jitter, packet loss, or latency, which are all things that we talked about as a Commission in the past as some of the hallmarks of a high level, or a high‑quality broadband service.

2204 Is that ‑‑ I guess, why not? Especially when you say you're speaking as a gamer. I was intrigued. Is that because they're not important? We certainly heard from Rogers that latency is no longer an issue, if I understood them correctly. Or is it because it's confusing? How do account for that?

2205 MR. HUDSON: Well, firstly, the slide deck that was put up was one of the previous versions I had submitted, and it was the current version after I had submitted more recently, but I didn’t want to make an issue of it.

2206 On the updated version there is ‑‑ the internet metrics include network connection quality such as latency, ping, and jitter. And as a gamer, this is something that I felt I was smiling and laughing myself during the Rogers presentation, because I actively experience issues with my network connectivity, whether it is from server hosting, media streaming, to gaming on different platforms with my computer.

2207 And it is not due to Wi‑Fi, because anything in my home that I can, I run the network cables into my router, into my network switches physically to minimize the number of vices that are on the Wi‑Fi for that very reason, because the network quality is better if you are running hard line. So as a gamer it’s like, network connection and quality, latency, jitter and packet loss are absolutely important.

2208 Because ‑‑ they say packet loss is not important. I disagree. I say that if you are sitting information and you have all the speed in the world, if your packets are dropping out, it doesn't matter how fast your internet is because the packets are never going to arrive.

2209 If your latency is really high to a service provider then you are going to experience degraded quality, whether that’s teleporting in a video game, whether you can’t communicate with your friends, family, over voice chat, or it is something that you are trying to do after school education, whether you are trying to search for a job. Like, all of that is reliant on the network quality as well as the actual throughput speed of the network.

2210 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks. That’s very helpful.

2211 In the interests of time, I’m going to invite some of my fellow Commissioners to see if they have questions.

2212 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks, Commissioner.

2213 We’ll go to Commissioner Desmond next, please.

2214 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Good morning. Thank you for being here. I really enjoy hearing from an individual and the experience that you have shopping for internet. It just gives us a completely different context, which is really, really useful.

2215 I did read your intervention, and in your materials, you talk about the difficulty for people who sign up for bundles. And I know you presented to us the different internet options, but maybe you could share a little bit about your experience as it relates to bundles?

2216 And then you also spoke about dark patterns in the marketing materials, which again, if you have a few minutes just to explain what you’re referring to there, that would be useful. Thank you.

2217 MR. HUDSON: Absolutely.

2218 With regard to bundles, I find that some friends of mine, they have ended up with bundles that they don’t use, because it is actually effectively cheaper to just buy the bundle just to use the internet than it is to ‑‑ like, they have a TV subscription they don’t use because it was cheaper for them to buy a bundle to get the internet they wanted because it was only available in that.

2219 With the ‑‑ I personally haven’t used bundles, like ever. I came up in a generation that pretty much had already cut the cord for like, cable subscriptions and that kind of stuff almost immediately, because everything is going through the internet now.

2220 It’s less about ‑‑ I mean, even cable back then went through the internet, but everything is coming through, like, a streaming service now. Everything is dependant on your internet service plan. So I feel that is less about the bundles now, than it is more about term contracts.

2221 And I find that one of the perks that the ISPs offer as a highlight to entice people is the fact that ‑‑ you’ll see it with many different subscriptions, they say there’s no lock in, there’s no contract, you can leave whenever you want. And I see that frequently in just as a perk, instead that should just be the way it is. Like, you should never be locked into something from ‑‑ if you don’t want to be part of it, and then having to pay to get out of it, that’s even worse.

2222 With regard to the bundles, I have less experience with that. All I’ve heard is just through friends and family that ended up in a bundle, and they don’t use like two‑thirds of it. Like if they have landline phone, they have TV and they have internet through ISP, nowadays they’re like yeah, I have my cell phone, I have my Android, my IOS device, and then I use my internet connection and wi‑fi provided by the router that they installed, and that’s it. They really don’t utilize the rest of the package they purchased.

2223 With regard to the dark patterns, I kind of regret wording it that way, but anyway. It was referring to the fact that like that 24‑month and term thing, and also with TELUS actually having the defaulted, like I’m already a pre‑existing consumer discount, that kind of stuff, these are all things that the ISPs are defaulting to. In Rogers’ case, they are defaulting to a 24‑month term to show people a number immediately out of the gate. But they’re like oh, but I don’t want to do that. I want to do monthly. And then all of a sudden, the number goes up.

2224 In TELUS’ case, it’s just like the pre‑existing consumer discount is already applied, and it’s just the first number you see. And it’s like oh, I’m not an existing consumer and the number goes up. Even if you are an existing consumer, some of their plans list that a two‑year term is required. So even though you are already a pre‑existing consumer, you are locked into this plan for two years with what, based on Bell’s information, I assume there is a buy‑out cost per month prorated for the rest of the contract if you want to leave.

2225 It is those kinds of patterns that ultimately led me to agree with the CRTC’s kind of investigation and the whole point of this hearing of using standardized labelling.

2226 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you very much.

2227 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks. We will go to Commissioner Paquette for a final question, please.

2228 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Hello, Mr. Hudson. Thank you for your participation.

2229 I just heard you say how much latency, jitter, package loss is important, especially for gamers. But I don’t see these metrics in the key metrics that you identified that should be systematically provided to the consumers.

2230 Is there a reason why you didn’t put such metrics in your list?

2231 MR. HUDSON: They are in there, but they were in a more recent version of the deck that I submitted to the hearing staff, that wasn’t brought up for the presentation. So I just rolled with the old one.

2232 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay, good.

2233 One more question. Why is the infrastructure important? Isn’t it the speed and what’s delivered in terms of quality of service more than the infrastructure? Why should the consumer have to understand what kind of network he’s using to get the service?

2234 MR. HUDSON: Ultimately, assuming that all infrastructure types are equal and that the speed is not impacted by any external factors, it wouldn’t be relevant. But that is not the case.

2235 If you are looking at fixed wireless, like trees can interfere. Those square dishes that you see mounted on everybody’s homes that are pointed in a specific direction, those are the fixed wireless services, and they can be intercepted by trees. If any solid object gets in the way, certain types of inclement weather can impact them.

2236 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: I understand. Would you go as far as making a difference between a 100 percent fibre network versus a hybrid network?

2237 MR. HUDSON: Absolutely, just because fibre goes to the community node and not to the last mile. Like, that is a little bit disingenuous to me.

2238 I would say it’s just like if you see fibre all over point of sale, that fibre connection should go to your home.

2239 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: And it makes a difference, you are saying, in the speed that you should expect.

2240 MR. HUDSON: That, I don't have an answer to. I would just say that if they’ve run fibre to your community node but then the last mile infrastructure is standard copper coaxial, that to me does not ‑‑ I don’t have that information whether or not the copper could actually maintain the speeds that the fibre could. But from an advertising point of view, they’re like I have fibre internet, generally that refers to a couple of things. Most people when they’re like oh, I have fibre, generally in conversation that means I have like gigabit or higher speeds mirrored with low latency. There are assumptions that go along with that in social conversation.

2241 To me, it matters about the actual physical connection being the same connection that is going to the node. So, if there’s fibre going to a community node and I select fibre internet, it should continue on the last mile infrastructure to the actual home.

2242 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Okay, thank you very much. No more questions.

2243 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you once again for stepping up and participating as a consumer. Your engagement has been very welcome.

2244 And as we do with all of our intervenors, we would like to give you a chance for a last word, if you have a quick thought that you would like to have your final consideration for us.

2245 MR. HUDSON: Absolutely. I would like to reiterate that if subscription ratios are not the metric to identify congestion to the consumers, I would argue for the ISPs to provide some kind of a metric for congestion, if that one is not suitable and is not appropriate, because I definitely think that people that are shopping in an area should be able to identify what that headroom is in terms of bandwidth that they referred to. And also for existing consumers, if they are dissatisfied with their current ISP, they should be able to look at their current network overhead, or subscription ratio, whatever metric that comes out of this, and be able to say well, the congestion here is quite high. I think it’s time to shop for a competitor.

2246 I would definitely say that competition is a problem, because like my community is locked into ‑‑ the infrastructure here is Rogers. You either have to buy from Rogers or from one of their subsidiaries.

2247 So I would argue that competition is not stellar, because it’s like the general word that I get in my community, everybody calls them RogBellus. It's like you’re either with RogBellus or you’re with somebody else.

2248 All users being treated equally, so the number of devices ‑‑ and not all users are equal when it comes to like it supports up to 16 devices. Are you talking about 16 devices of people that are like tech junkies, or are you talking about people that are literally just doing like some surfing and some email, because the use cases are going to be completely different?

2249 As I did mention, latency and network quality is just as important as the actual throughput speeds.

2250 Also, kind of the fear and the concern around technical jargon, we are in a world that is growing ever more technologically focused. So, I think trying to avoid technical jargon is reinforcing the problem of consumers not being educated about the terminology of the services that they are paying for. So, I would disagree with that.

2251 Ultimately, the quality of service goes beyond time metrics as well. So it’s like you’re looking at speed, latency, jitter, everything like that. I think outages should be factored into the quality of service metrics. So, looking at a lot of the outages that have occurred nationally and also locally.

2252 During my work day, like, I telework, so it’s like when the internet goes down, there’s nothing I can do. I can’t work.

2253 So I think outages should be factored in as a possible metric, not just the quality of the connection but also like how many outages have there been within the last year in this area? I think that would be important to people as well.

2254 And when they were talking about ‑‑ I think the concern around the costs that the ISPs are mentioning about having to educate their customer care personnel, about educating them about discussing packet loss and jitter, when I contact my ISP, they are already prepared to have that conversation readily with me. Like, they are educated. They are informed about packet loss and jitter. They know how to measure it from their systems to mine, and they also work with me to help investigate anything that happens. I mean, that’s my experience with my ISP.

2255 So, ultimately, I think the label is a very good thing. I think it is necessary.

2256 I would like to thank the Commission for their time and allowing me to present today.

2257 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

2258 We will now break for lunch and be back at 12:45.

‑‑‑ Suspension à 11 h 45

‑‑‑ Reprise à 12 h 44

2259 THE SECRETARY: Welcome back.

2260 We will now hear the presentation from Independent Telecommunications Providers Association.

2261 When you are ready, please introduce yourself and your colleagues, and you may begin.

Présentation

2262 MR. HOLMES: Thank you, Vice‑Chair Scott and Commissioners.

2263 My name is Jonathan Holmes. I am the Executive Director of the ITPA.

2264 To my left is Grant Roughly, Vice‑President of North Frontenac Telephones and ITPA Board Chair.

2265 To my immediate right is Angela Lawrence, General Manager of Hay Communications, and to Angela’s right is Ian Stevens, CEO of Execulink Telecom.

2266 We are here on behalf of our 21 member companies, all of which are rural facilities‑based incumbent telecom carriers who build fibre networks. Over the last 30 years, ITPA members have established themselves as reliable, trustworthy and customer friendly fibre broadband service providers.

2267 We want to focus on two main issues today.

2268 One, if you decide to impose new requirements, they should not be mandated for small TSPs.

2269 And two, assuming you impose a label requirement, we urge you to ensure that they promote competition by ensuring customers have the information to easily compare services, presented in a way which prevents the ISP from misleading the customer.

2270 Angela?

2271 MS. LAWRENCE: Thank you, Jonathan.

2272 The ITPA supports a broadband label. Regulatory measures that promote greater transparency and informed decision‑making are a good thing for customers, but they also foster competition. A pre‑sale broadband label would be widely recognized as a significant customer‑centric innovation by the Commission.

2273 But how would a label foster competition? To get the best deal, consumers have to be able to compare options and easily switch between those options. Consumers who may not fully understand the complexities of telecom deserve to be able to easily compare options. If it is difficult for a customer to do that, they are less likely to extract the best value from their service options for their hard‑earned dollars.

2274 Having said that, the new regulatory measures should only be imposed where they are needed to address a demonstrated problem and where the benefits clearly outweigh the costs. Neither of those criterion is met in the case of smaller ISPs. Your current approach strikes an appropriate balance between ensuring as many customers as is practical directly benefit from the Internet Code while ensuring the significant burden of compliance with the Code is not imposed where it isn’t necessary.

2275 The Commission decided in 2019 and again in 2021 that the Internet Code should only apply to the largest service providers, and we think that logic continues to hold today, and for any new measures.

2276 The Code directly covers almost 90 percent of residential internet subscribers, and there is no evidence that new measures are needed to protect small ISP customers. 95 percent of CCTS complaints come from the companies that are directly subject to the Code.

2277 For their part, ITPA members receive very few complaints either at the CCTS or directly to our offices. This should not be surprising. We operate and live in local markets where we are known personally by many of our customers, so misleading them, or misrepresenting our offers, would come back to haunt us immediately.

2278 Our members do not engage in the types of behaviour the Commission is seeking to address. Quite frankly, if the largest ISPs in Canada treated their customers like we do, this proceeding wouldn’t be necessary. But yet, here we are.

2279 MR. STEVENS: Several parties to this proceeding have argued that “consistency” alone demands that any new measures should apply to all service providers. That’s a very easy thing to say, but it is a binary approach to a question that needs a nuanced answer.

2280 It ignores other considerations for small service providers which justify continuing the current approach. Imposing new measures on small ISPs would result in very little incremental benefit, but impose costs on them which would be quite high.

2281 There is a significant risk to small service providers of a large compliance overhead. We have fewer resources and are less able to compete if we are dealing with obligations which are, based on the evidence, not needed. With very few exceptions, SILECs do not have dedicated regulatory resources which can be tasked with additional compliance. In most cases, the people at this table, the leaders of their businesses, and others in similar executive positions, are responsible for the reporting.

2282 We maintain that the Internet Code applies significant indirect pressure on the entire market in two ways. It sets expectations in customers’ minds as to what kind of behaviour and information they can generally expect as they shop; and, the “expectation approach” used by the Commission for non‑Code companies, and which we would continue to accept, casts a long shadow that exerts pressure on decisions regarding marketing materials and websites. The Code reinforces ITPA members’ historical respect for the values of transparency, price certainty and clarity in their offers.

2283 Turning our attention to a possible label, a key priority for the Commission is to pre‑empt surprises for customers, including surprises that may be buried in the weeds of a price commitment period. It should be perfectly clear to the customer what to expect over the course of a commitment period, including the full price of the service, any term commitments, and whether any rates can be changed and if so, when.

2284 With regard to what should be included on the label, price is paramount. This came through clearly in the public interest research you commissioned for this proceeding. That some large service providers have argued that price not be included on the label suggests self‑interest over consumer interest, and you should dismiss that proposal out of hand. So, price of course, and after that, we think the FCC’s broadband label is a good starting point with its references to promotional or time‑limited pricing.

2285 Typical upload and download speeds are another necessary inclusion on the label. Next to price and term, they are the most important feature of a service offering for Canadians.

2286 MR. ROUGHLEY: Thanks, Ian.

2287 You have asked us to give feedback on whether oversubscription ratios should be provided to consumers. Our short answer is, no. That particular metric will be fluid over any period of time and will not provide customers with any indication of what level of service they can expect down the road. Plus, it would take a significant public education effort to ensure that Canadians understand the concept.

2288 So, instead of technical jargon such as ‘latency’, ‘jitter’, or ‘oversubscription ratios’, we’ve proposed that the label inform the customer of the transmission technology that is used to provide service to the home. Fibre optics are the gold standard for transmission technology, and we have seen the larger ISPs riff off the word ‘fibre’, incorporating some spin in their marketing, using slogans such as ‘fibre‑powered’. The labels should clearly indicate the transmission technology, be it fibre to the home, coax, wireless, or a combination of technologies. The customer can then make an informed decision with regards to what kind of network they want to be served by, and add that to the mix of considerations when choosing a service provider.

2289 The most important period for providing a label to customers is the presale period when the customer is gathering information and comparing service providers. The label the customer was shown in the presales period should be provided in the Code‑mandated Critical Information Summary. That way, they have a record of what they saw and were promised.

2290 In summary, mandating a presale broadband label would be widely recognized as a significant customer‑centric innovation by the Commission.

2291 Finally, we want to raise the issue of service bundles. We believe you need to address bundling of services when considering labels because a significant portion of Canadians have bundled services that could include a combination of up to four telecom and broadcasting subscriptions.

2292 Having a label that only addresses one of the services in a bundle is a recipe for customer confusion and an opportunity for the large service providers to play shell games with rates and terms. Even if the details are very clear for internet services, when you combine internet with other products, opportunities for customer confusion arise due to the complexity and the interplay of the various price points of the bundle and terms.

2293 We note that your Consumer Protections Action Plan indicates that you plan to combine the three current codes into a single code at some point in the future, and we encourage you to launch that proceeding, and leverage your determinations in this proceeding to address the clarity needed for service bundles.

2294 Thank you.

2295 MR. HOLMES: That concludes our oral presentation. Thank you for your attention and the opportunity to appear in front of you, and we look forward to trying to answer any questions you have for us.

2296 THE CHAIRPERSON: Great. Thanks very much to the ITPA and your membership for participating and for joining us today.

2297 We are going to start the questioning off with Commissioner Naidoo.

2298 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you for your presentation. Thank you for being here today. We really appreciate it.

2299 I wanted to start off talking about pricing clarity. Obviously this hearing is about transparency for consumers. So, you’ve probably read the interventions and been watching the hearing so far. Some intervenors have stated in their interventions that pricing clarity is an area that they think can actually be improved for consumers.

2300 So, in your view, are there ways that clarity of pricing can be further improved?

2301 MR. STEVENS: I think the short answer is, yes. When consumers ‑‑

2302 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: And how?

2303 MR. STEVENS: When consumers go and look for a service offering in the presales period, the broadband label that’s being contemplated is a way to display the pricing and the terms of commitment, and I know Commissioner Paquette has been surfing websites, looking at people’s offers, but what you see are maybe a handful of offers, and in many cases there are 20 or 30 offers that are made available to customers, some on the web, some in person, and in other cases on the phone.

2304 So, for consumers to be able to sit to receive and consider the details in what the price includes, what it doesn’t include, what the term is, how the rates can change over time ‑‑ not for just the ones on the web but for any offer they’re presented, to give them the chance to sit back and make an informed decision on their own time is, I think, as much important to clarity as the two or three that are on the website at any given time.

2305 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you very much. Let’s talk a bit about contract term length. Internet consumers have raised concerns over a lack of clarity, in their view, of contract lengths, also price certainty.

2306 How, in your view, should the Commission require ISPs to improve the clarity of contract periods for consumers?

2307 MS. LAWRENCE: So, I think including the contract terms as part of the disclosures on the broadband label is a key way that the Commission can move forward with that. And as well, in addition to that, customers need to know what their price is going to be after the contract ends. That, I think, could be a big piece that’s missing in a lot of the disclosures to date. So, basically, including the contracted price on the presale label, as well as disclosing the post‑contract price, would be the best improvement that could be made there.

2308 MR. ROUGHLEY: And if I can just add, the labelling introduces the ability to create some standardized format. Some presentations by the intervenor earlier today gave some examples of the confusion that can happen with trying to understand what the bundle or what the service offering is and what the terms are.

2309 By standardizing it, I think you offer the consumer the ability to ‑‑ no matter who the provider, no matter what the navigation of the website, or the sales negotiation process ‑‑ you create a standardized point at which they can intelligently look at the information in terms of the price they’d be paying, the exposure they have to price increases, the term that they’re committing to, et cetera, in a standardized format, meaning much easier to understand.

2310 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you so much for that.

2311 In your intervention, you emphasized the importance of clear communication regarding service bundles, which we touched on a bit, and the connections to other telecom or broadcasting services on the labels. You also pointed out that focussing labels solely on internet services overlooks the complexity of bundled offerings, which in your view can mislead consumers and obscure the true costs.

2312 I’m wondering if you can elaborate on that concern, for us?

2313 MR. HOLMES: Yes, when we were thinking about this, we thought that, because bundles are so widespread in the industry ‑‑ I think most of us probably have a bundle for some aspects of our home phone service ‑‑ it was something we just couldn’t ignore. It’s a glaring point of unclarity, if I can put it that way. So, that’s why we raised it, and I will turn it over to Ian for a little bit more.

2314 MR. STEVENS: Sure. I think Mr. Hudson did a good job on the Telus website of demonstrating how the inconsistency between pricing for internet, mobility service, bundle terms ‑‑ he kind of pointed out some inconsistency, how they all tie together. And I believe that’s just an opportunity for confusion and an opportunity for shell games. Make the internet service ‑‑ in this case, the Telus website made the internet service seem very economical, but what does that mean for your mobility service that goes with it? So, it’s an opportunity for shell games. So, you might buy cheap internet, but your other services might be very expensive.

2315 Term overlaps ‑‑ you might have specific exit clauses in internet that are different from other services, as well. So, that consistency weaving together, we think that we saw it as a problem, how do you sort through it? And we think that’s why we’re suggesting that you continue on your roadmap of looking at other services and how to clearly communicate those to customers ‑‑ consumers.

2316 MR. ROUGHLEY: And if I can just add, interesting ‑‑ the wording on the Consumer Protections Action Plan was to empower Canadians by making it easier for them to understand and navigate their internet, wireless, and television services, while preventing unexpected billing surprises.

2317 So, to Ian’s point, when somebody chooses a bundle and the provider has perhaps manipulated where the discount resides in that particular bundle, when they go to cancel their TV subscription and suddenly realize that their internet costs double what they thought it did, embedded in the bundle, I think that speaks directly to the initiatives of the Action Plan, which is to prevent those unexpected billing surprises.

2318 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: What specific information, in your view, should be included on the label, to be helpful? You talked about how too much information is confusing. What specifically do you think should be on a label to help consumers fully understand the ties and their potential implications, when it comes to bundles?

2319 MR. STEVENS: So, we didn't dive into mocking up and figuring out exactly how all the labels would interact between the different services. We focussed our time on what needs to go on the internet label. So, I think we would have to think our way through that. We do know the FCC has a link to the bundling piece of it within their label. We didn’t look at the specification of what has to be buried in behind that secondary link, and whether or not, and how it would apply to the Canadian marketplace.

2320 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right.

2321 Let’s move on to the topic of congestion. I’m going to ask a question you may or may not be able to answer, and if you can’t answer it, then there are other ways for us to get the information on the record, of course ‑‑ through RFIs, and so on and so forth.

2322 The question is basically, are you aware of how your members measure and manage congestion felt by consumers? Do you know how they do that? If so, are you able to tell us how they do it? Do you know how often they measure? Is it a broader measure, or a household ‑‑ at the household or node level? Like, if you can put some meat on the bones of that question?

2323 MR. STEVENS: So, we have not investigated what each and every one of our members does for congestion measurement and frequency, and how they’ve done it on each one of their networks. We’ve talked about how our networks are done, and we expect that ‑‑ and we could go find that out for our other members, and in the case of Execulink, we look at ‑‑ not dissimilar to Rogers, we do passive probing of our networks. We’re looking for network utilization from the very core of our networks, all the way out to the edge. We trigger network expansions, augmentations proactively as we see congestion or as we project congestion to be out into the future.

2324 I don’t think it’s inconsistent with how my colleagues’ networks are managed, but we don’t have specific information to that level of detail in terms of whether it’s a once‑a‑month review. In our case, it’s daily ‑‑ or every few ‑‑ don’t know, every hour or so we’re pulling stats and looking at peak utilization and things like that. So, we don’t have the frequency across the board. So, we could add to that, if you’re seeking that, in an RFI.

2325 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: I am just going to ask Michael or Albert if we think that we need an RFI ‑‑ or do you want to come back to that?

2326 MR. OSTROFF: That is something we can come back to afterwards ‑‑

2327 MR. STEVENS: Sure.

2328 MR. OSTROFF: in an RFI. Once we’ve settled on the RFI questions that are sort of most appropriate for the given intervenor, then we can sort of settle on those details. So, we don’t need to confirm that just yet, as to what that content would be.

2329 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Just as a follow‑up to that question, and you may not be able to answer it either, but this hearing is about transparency. It’s about how can we make sure that the grassroot public understands some of the information that they need to understand. So, I’m wondering if there’s a way, in your view, that would be an easy way to explain congestion and congestion metrics to consumers, in an understandable way?

2330 MR. ROUGHLEY: I think the challenge ‑‑ and it has been touched on by a number of the intervenors ‑‑ is to distill that down to something that is digestible by the general public. You had an intervenor earlier who identified himself as a gamer ‑‑ and probably a much deeper knowledge. Anecdotally, we spend some time with our customer service representatives and our sales representatives who are hands on with our customers as small rural providers ‑‑ you know, local in our communities. We tend to have direct contact. Speaking just for my own firm, I can tell you that we have one hundred percent contact with every customer that signs a contract, with a live person. That percentage of user ‑‑ that sophisticated, knowledge‑based user ‑‑ is very, very low.

2331 So, we do believe that there has been a grown, broader understanding of network technology. It’s why we feel that it’s an important component, if the Commission moves ahead with labeling, to understand that. We heard an intervenor earlier, from Rogers, talk about the difficulties on the wireless side with providing similar measurement metrics. To us, that Reinforces the need to identify network technology as a simple, relatively straightforward‑to‑understand component of giving that clarity.

2332 The analogy that was given on the oversubscription rate ‑‑ I think the grocery lines ‑‑ on the rare occasion that I am approved to run the grocery cart when I am out with my wife, and I get sent to the grocery line that is low in numbers, if someone steps in front of me just as I stop to pick up my box of cookies and that is an overloaded cart, that low‑subscription or low‑use ratio set of aisles changes for me in that instant. That’s no different from what happens on our networks, and it’s one of the reasons that a series of the intervenors have indicated that that’s not an effective metric.

2333 The majority of our members have invested heavily in building fibre‑optic networks. A high oversubscription ratio on that is fine when you’ve got the capacity in your network. A low oversubscription ratio, which one might tend to think is more effective for having more overhead available for the one gamer that wants to jump online, might just be an indication of a coax network that is old and has interference with their rate of signals.

2334 So, it’s not a clean and simple metric. I think getting down to clarity on network technology, getting down to clarity on your upload and download speeds and whether you can have symmetrical speeds, keeping it to some very basic parameters ‑‑ there are other components of quality of service that we’re all obligated to comply with that I think look after the more deep‑knowledge, technology‑based items that are hard to create a generic standard for.

2335 MR. STEVENS: Can I maybe build? I think we went down the oversubscription path there for a second there. When we think about the broadband label, we think about it as a promise to deliver over a period of time. It’s provided to consumers before they buy. It becomes kind of the tombstone of the promise that you’re going to deliver on over the contract period ‑‑ 24‑month period. That’s what you’re promise is ‑‑ for price, for speed ‑‑ over that 24‑month period. We struggle with oversubscription because that ratio changes every time you add a consumer to the network or you change your network configuration. To deliver on that oversubscription tombstone point in time thing that you put in front of the customer before they buy doesn’t fit with the timeline of our view of thinking on how the label fits with the customer relationship for that period.

2336 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right, thank you.

2337 In your intervention, you mentioned that larger ISPs with different offers within a community should make those offers and their labels easily discoverable on their website, to ensure that all the community members have access to the very same offers.

2338 And I’m wondering if you can expand on how you think that ISPs should achieve what you’ve suggested?

2339 MR. STEVENS: So, we haven't spent a lot of time on this. I think you have talked with other intervenors about open‑access type data publishing. I don’t think we’ve gone that far. I think it just should be available on the provider website, fully available and not buried ‑‑ and so easily discoverable.

2340 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: You used the term ‘easily discoverable’, and I am wondering what you mean in terms of ‘easily discoverable’. Can you paint a picture of what you’re envisioning ‑‑ what you would like to see?

2341 MS. LAWRENCE: I will take a stab at that. I think it should be ‑‑ ‘easily discoverable’ to me means that, even if I was not the person who accepted the visit from the door‑to‑door salesman ‑‑ I am the neighbour ‑‑ I should be able to go on the website and get the same offer.

2342 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: Thank you.

2343 When it comes to measurements, you indicated in your intervention that the Commission must specify the network endpoints that all service providers must use when they measure performance. You also state that any speed tests mandated and endorsed by the Commission must be limited to those sections of the network that are fully under the control of the network owner, starting from the customers’ premises, to a destination within the control of the service provider.

2344 So, I’m wondering if you can elaborate on why you think that performance‑testing should be limited only to the network owner‑controlled portion of that network?

2345 MR. ROUGHLEY: I think the simple answer is, because those are the components that we have full control over. So, when we talked about the question of the oversubscription ratios and the traffic management, those are all items that we can do within our network.

2346 As we step outside, to the sections of our infrastructure that we don’t control, we start to lose the ability to manage some of those components that affect our KPIs or our metrics that we’re reporting on. If there is an event outside of that activity ‑‑ and earlier intervenors have touched on the fact that you can have something occurring in a core network in a link to a Google server ‑‑ that could impact some of those measurements, those are outside of our control and therefore difficult to be held accountable for reporting to specific metrics.

2347 MR. HOLMES: And as you venture, I’d say, further into the home, you know, depending on what kind of wi‑fi equipment is in the house, it may or may not be the wi‑fi equipment supplied by the service provider. There may be a fridge in the way. Some people could be upstairs versus downstairs. So there’s just a whole host of things out of the control further into the house beyond the router that should be excluded.

2348 COMMISSIONER NAIDOO: All right. Well, thank you very much. Those are all my questions. I know that my colleagues have questions as well. Thanks.

2349 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks, Commissioner.

2350 Let's go to Commissioner Paquette next, please.

2351 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Good afternoon. You suggest that the smaller ISPs be exempted from any requirement of the standardized information. Many intervenors, among which, as an example, the Deaf Wireless Canada Committee, argue that there shall be no two‑tiered system for consumer protection.

2352 So isn’t there a danger to create a subclass of consumers, especially in the region, if smaller providers are not submitted to the same display requirements as the big ISPs?

2353 MS. LAWRENCE: I’ll take that question.

2354 It would seem on the face that there may be two classes of subscribers. We would purport that there are two classes. There are those that are ‑‑ that have the benefit of being serviced by small providers like ourselves and the results of that service you can see in ‑‑ and the satisfaction of the service that those people receive, you can see reflected in the number of complaints received by the CCTS.

2355 So currently, the ‑‑ I believe 90 percent of the complaints are by those ‑‑ are to those companies that are subject to the Internet Code. So we feel that is a reflection of the better service that we provide to our customers.

2356 It’s in our DNA to ensure that our customers are happy and so that’s one aspect of it. We don’t believe that those customers are held back at all by being served by us and, furthermore, would not be held back by not being ‑‑ by us not being subject to either the Internet Code or any labelling requirement.

2357 We ‑‑ I believe I can speak for myself and for my colleagues and for the members of the association that we provide service within the spirit of the Internet Code. The issue that we have with any broadband label is the cost of compliance, the time investment for compliance and risk of non‑compliance, ensuring that our ‑‑ going back and ensuring that our systems finitely and definitely answer the question ‑‑ or the requirement for the Code, so we act within the spirit of the Code, but in order for us to comply we do not have regulatory departments. It would be another level of a burden ‑‑ a burden, actually, that could potentially harm consumers because the more burdens that are put on us from a regulatory point of view, the harder it is for us to do business on a competitive basis.

2358 So you may actually, you know, not directly, but ultimately see a reduction in competition if smaller providers are required to continually add this to their cost base.

2359 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: And I understand that the idea that it could be a burden to produce the label, you’re also saying that you support the idea that the bigger ISPs have to produce a label and you submit that it’s to help comparison between offers, but isn’t there a danger that if your members do not produce any label they will be excluded from this ability that we would give the consumer to compare?

2360 MS. LAWRENCE: I think there could be a danger, but I think, in fact, that would not come to fruition. Our companies, our members would need to be ‑‑ we would have competitive forces that would ‑‑ our customers are going to expect the same information, the same similar presentation of information that we will have to respond to that competitive force, but again, we won’t have that added burden of compliance and annual reporting that that nature of the costs of providing the mandate ‑‑ any mandated, prescriptive information.

2361 MR. HOLMES: So I think what we’re also saying is that the things that are imposed on, call it the 90 percent of the market, the carriers that support 90 percent of the market, that puts a lot of pressure on our members to kind of pay attention to that because it sets a general expectation of, for Canadians what they can expect from the industry as they go shopping for internet.

2362 So I think there’s not a real danger, at least speaking for our member companies, that if they aren’t imposed directly on us they’ll be disadvantage in any way the market will put pressure on and small service providers will have to meet customers’ expectations or suffer the consequences.

2363 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: And in your intervention, the written one, you suggest what should be the content of this label. My colleague, Commissioner Naidoo, asked you the questions and I guess you were not sure, but you make a very precise list of what should be included in the label like service activation and charges, discounts, bundles and time limited right up. Anyway, there’s a whole list.

2364 I was wondering, is that what the ITPA members are currently doing, offering all this information to their clients?

2365 MR. STEVENS: I don't think we’ve done the research to validate that all ITPA members have done ‑‑ are doing that today.

2366 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: One last question. What would you respond to the comment that some intervenors made that if we apply the requirement only to the big providers, we might not solve the source of the customer unsatisfaction which does not come from the big networks that deployed in the CPE, but more of the rural areas. Would you like to react to this?

2367 MS. LAWRENCE: Yes, I would very much like to react to that because I think that's not true.

2368 Speaking for all of the ITPA member companies, we have deployed fibre in our rural areas, so I think the questions or the concerns about quality of service that you may have ‑‑ may have been labelled by other providers as rural are not rural. It is fibre versus non‑fibre.

2369 So in the ITPA member areas, our customers are virtually ‑‑ or growing to the point where we were almost all provided by fibre, so you don’t see the same level of customer complaints. Jitter, latency, speed, that’s just not an issue.

2370 So they ‑‑ it’s not a matter of it being rural. It’s a matter of the technology. And that’s why we ended on that being a very important piece of the label.

2371 COMMISSIONER PAQUETTE: Thank you. No more questions.

2372 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.

2373 Commissioner Abramson, let's go to you, please.

2374 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks.

2375 We’re trying, obviously, to build out a full record and ‑‑ on some of the key decisions that we have to make in this proceeding. In that spirit, I’d like to dig a little bit further on the costs of producing the nutritional labels that you’re advocating that some of your competitors should provide.

2376 Can you talk to me about the biggest pieces in terms of, you know, where the cost burden would arise? Is it in the measurement, is it in the producing of the labels? Is it integrating labels into the different business process that you have?

2377 I mean, presumably it’s all those things, but I don’t have a sense of what measure.

2378 MR. STEVENS: So having not seen the spec, it’s speculation at this point.

2379 I think there’s two pieces of it. One is the what do you put in front of the clients and customers and how do you get all that data pulled together and presented, whether it’s data collection in the back office, things like that. Getting that piece of it built is an unknown box.

2380 The other big box that we don’t know about is what is the ‑‑ if it’s applied to us, to all TSPs, what does the compliance reporting look like on an annual basis, what does the ongoing monitoring look like and if there’s a piece of that that is very expensive to implement, it could be a huge barrier for us, and that’s at the root of our ask of please don’t make this an obligation, make it an expectation so that if there’s something that’s extremely expensive to do that we could avoid a piece of it.

2381 MS. LAWRENCE: I can just add a little bit more to that.

2382 I think about ‑‑ we can’t speak as to the costs for large TSPs, but when I think about if I was required to implement the label in my company, the part that would scare me is ‑‑ or make me, you know, have sleepless nights is jitter, latency and packet loss because that requires the ongoing measurement.

2383 And the other pieces are all there, so you know, there would be a cost, undoubtedly, but that ongoing perpetual measurement and it changes over time, the subscription. All of a sudden, I sell an 8 gig service somewhere, well, whoa, there goes my over‑subscription rate. So that’s the piece I think that it would have the largest impact, that and then the compliance.

2384 I have ‑‑ you know, to do my Wireless Code of Conduct submission, that’s probably two weeks for a staff member to pull all that information together. And it may not sound like a lot, but that’s two weeks that that person isn’t doing sales and promotion and marketing and all the other stuff that they do.

2385 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: I could go in two directions on this, but let me go a little bit further down the shore a little bit. Let me give you an example.

2386 If we were to ‑‑ and this is completely theoretical, looking at staff when I say this, as a thought experiment, so don’t get too nervous. But imagine, for example, the Commission said, look, whether or not it’s mandated, there’s an interest in driving down the cost of having everyone comply with any nutritional label requirement in the, you know, scenario that we ordered something like that for anyone at all. So we’ll do like a hosted web page and you can go and you can enter in the details of the plan and it’ll make all the data available in a machine‑readable way and it’ll spit out the label for you and you can just paste it onto your website.

2387 Would that make a difference as to the costs? And again, I realize that you’re saying, well, it depends on what you’re asking us to measure. If it’s just price elements, that’s one thing. If it’s ongoing network measurement, it's a very different thing.

2388 But you know, is this the sort of thing that would help foster adoption in the marketplace in the event we ordered something like that or is it pretty immaterial?

2389 MR. HOLMES: Just to clarify, is that a ‑‑ would that be a CRTC generated label in response to input provided by ISPs?

2390 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Yeah. So it’d be like if you Google “nutrition label maker” online, you’ll find that there’s many web pages where you can enter in details of food and it’ll spit out a label for you, and I guess it’d be something like that that we would host as a service.

2391 MR. ROUGHLEY: I think as a straightforward data collection process, that would certainly foster a much lower cost to participate. I think to Angela’s point, our primary concern is what backs that up in terms of regulatory compliance with the data that’s provided.

2392 I can speak a little bit to the challenges for a small ISP that does have to participate currently in some of the test reporting when we talk about latency, packet loss and jitter. As a participant in Ontario’s current ASIP program building out large swaths of fibre networks throughout the province, we have to report on monthly KPIs that include those three components tested to the O&T in the customer premises. It is a cumbersome, expensive process, it's time consuming and our organizations, our member companies don’t employ dedicated staff for that process.

2393 There’s challenges in terms of getting good definition to the testing protocols and the reporting protocols. I can’t speak to specific costs, but I can tell the manhours that have gone into it and that we’re committed to.

2394 If we had to expand that across all of our current networks, some of which were privately funded fibre optic builds, as is the majority of our member companies have built, it becomes exponentially more expensive.

2395 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Would there be a way ‑‑ because, look, in what we’re considering we are obviously trying to minimize the cost burden on all companies of whatever it is that we consider doing. The goal is never to impose a burden that is greater than is necessary.

2396 In working with, for instance, tests like those of the ASIP program, you must have had some thoughts ‑‑ you may have had some thoughts on how this could have been done perhaps more efficiently and how to make it less of a burden while returning similar information. For instance, you know, the passive measurements that ‑‑ the passive monitoring that some of you will do as a way of ensuring high‑quality network experience for your users, could that data have been used to generate some of the kinds of metrics they’re looking for so as to avoid having to do active measurement?

2397 MR. ROUGHLEY: I think without fully understanding what ultimately the Commission would want to see in terms of those metrics and that reporting, I would say yes, there were proposals made in terms of trying to leverage.

2398 Ian spoke earlier about the management and overall network monitoring and management and proactive forecasting of how to ensure we avoid congestion. Rogers spoke to the same, I think, quite clearly to the same current measures that they have within their networks.

2399 There’s a market competitive component for the same reason that we’re talking about that we’ve submitted that the ITPA members shouldn’t ‑‑ we should not be governed by this decision if it moves forward. Those market conditions also drive the network management.

2400 To utilize some of those probably would be much more attainable, but again, our concern also relates to the reporting burden that comes with compliance or proving compliance.

2401 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: No, that’s well understood and certainly this question of reporting burden beyond doing the actual thing that’s being requested is something that I think we hopefully and certainly ought to be mindful of in general.

2402 Thank you for your answers.

2403 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.

2404 We’ll go to Commissioner Desmond next, please.

2405 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you. I just have two smaller questions.

2406 Telus in their presentation suggested a common use factor or criteria so that consumers could see what their service plan would provide by way of usage. Is that ‑‑ I’d just like to get your views on whether you think that would be helpful to consumers.

2407 MS. LAWRENCE: Could you explain that a little more? I wasn’t familiar with ‑‑

2408 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: So one of the suggestions and, actually, we’ve heard this from a few intervenors, would be you’d have a metric saying this plan would provide service for X number of users or this many streams.

2409 MR. STEVENS: I think Rogers talked a wee bit about it this morning as well. I think their answer was pretty on point. What you would talk about common use two or three years ago isn’t what common use is today and it would continue to evolve.

2410 So the gap ‑‑ like that whole concept of how do you standardize that and how do you continue to evolve it to the changing demands of customers today, tomorrow, three years from now, five years, I expect that the implications of the decisions will last, you know, a decade or so. To be able to have that standardized and perpetuate out a decade is very difficult, in my view, as to how you’re going to navigate that.

2411 The concept is ‑‑ I like the concept, but it’s hard to figure out what resonates with consumers.

2412 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: And just a question of clarification from your comments today. As I understand it, you’re submitting that your members all provide fibre and, as a result, provide excellent service. And in response to a question from Commissioner Paquette when she asked about, you know, the fact we’re trying to address the issues that are coming from rural areas where maybe there have been a lot of complaints about not getting the service that’s been advertised, I think your submission was, well, that doesn’t really ‑‑ not really a problem for your members. But what about other service providers that maybe are small and not providing fibre? Would it be your view that they should have to comply? Because isn’t that sort of where we’re trying to provide clarity to customers?

2413 What about that subset of service providers?

2414 MR. STEVENS: I think for clarity, we have members that have predominantly fibre networks and I think all of our members are pushing towards fibre. There are still coaxial networks out there, DSL on copper networks, fixed wireless networks being provided within our membership operations. We’re pushing aggressively ‑‑ all of our members are pushing aggressively to fibre their communities.

2415 I think our point around where it’s not fibre is relevant. Where fibre isn’t, that’s likely where the rural complaint, I guess if you want to call it that, would be coming from. That’s why we wanted ‑‑ that’s why we detailed that the technology, the underlying technology, should be part of the consumer broadband label because people can research very easily, contrast DSL versus fibre, coax versus fixed wireless, whatever they want to Google. There’s some decent information out there that they can educate themselves on and it could be something ‑‑ part of an education program that the CRTC would take on to help provide more information if they wanted to.

2416 MR. ROUGHLEY: And if I could add, specifically to your question are there non‑ITPA members that are small providers in rural areas that are perhaps the source of some of the complaints that the other intervenors are referring to, I go back to our point of when you have a labelling system that will capture 90 percent of the service market, those market forces and that educational program that will evolve out of it will allow those rural consumers that perhaps have a service provider that isn’t bound by the nutrition labelling regime to ask them those questions rather than perhaps lose one of those providers through, you know, a nervousness about the cost of complying or the costs associated with not complying.

2417 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you.

2418 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.

2419 So we’ll close on a question about two little words, just four letters, “up to”.

2420 So I know at least some of your members, you know, and for services including fibre services, do use the phrase “up to”. Can you speak about what impact that phrase has on consumers both in terms of what it tells them about the service they can expect and I’m also curious as to whether you feel it has some kind of disenfranchising power? A previous intervenor talked about it as a get‑out‑of‑jail free card.

2421 Does it make the consumer feel like, well, I’m getting what they advertise because they told me it was “up to”, so anything below that I guess I can’t really complain?

2422 MS. LAWRENCE: Well, I think ‑‑ I’m not aware of that feeling with our customers and I do hear the customer interactions. I think that we do have, you know, guaranteed rate, service packages if the customer requires that. I think it’s more a clarity to the customer that if you require a guaranteed service, then we ‑‑ then this maybe is not for you. But for 95 percent of our customers, it works.

2423 And we ‑‑ I think Rogers said this morning they only sell what they can provide, so once an area is qualified, once the service address is qualified for a certain level of service, that’s what’s sold.

2424 So we say “up to” as a ‑‑ I guess maybe it is a bit or ‑‑ a bit of an out, but I think it’s more to provide some clarity to the customer that this is our ‑‑ this is the service that we can provide there on a typical basis. And yeah, there may be times when it doesn’t reach that, but again, 99 percent of the time that’s what you’re going to get.

2425 MR. ROUGHLEY: And specifically to Angela's point, there is the ability to buy a dedicated service that will maintain those speeds rather than the “up to” component, so part of the “up to” is a clarification of the price point that they’re buying that service at. There’s the ability to buy something without the caveat of the “up to”, but it introduces another touchpoint, another cost ‑‑ just another cost scale altogether.

2426 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks, that was helpful.

2427 I’m not pretending that it’s easy, or that getting rid of the “up to”, but I am interested in that space, and you spoke to a couple of facets of it. Kind of, what does that “up to” capture, and why is it there, and to what degree do consumers understand it. I think those are two key aspects.

2428 Sorry, did you want to comment on that?

2429 MR. STEVENS: Yeah. So I think about where “up to” came from. I think about the days of DSL when it was in its infancy, and the DSL technology would rerate itself based upon the loop conditions and all kinds of things like that.

2430 So “up to” came from this idea of how do you deliver a commitment to a customer, but at the same time don’t create this giant litigious gap where, you know, we’ve got a Quebec member who is worried about some of the class action ‑‑ the ease of class action in Quebec. So you worry about things, making promises you can't deliver on. So I think that's where “up to” came from.

2431 It gets easier when get to fibre, it gets easier when you get to well engineered and well‑maintained coaxial networks. It's still hard on DSL and fixed wireless to deliver on a guaranteed speed promise. So there's this legacy of not trying to set yourself up for bad legal situations, as well as trying to talk to what your service can often do.

2432 We've seen words like typical, and I think the Bill C‑288 talks about typical speeds, we’ve seen “up to”, and there's some other language that has been brought forward in this hearing. But there’s that desire, need, to manage that is not 100 percent at the retail rates we're talking about.

2433 THE CHAIRPERSON: That was a helpful conversation. Thank you.

2434 And with that, we’ll turn it back over to you for a final word.

2435 MR. HOLMES: Thank you, Mr. Vice‑Chair.

2436 I just want to say we really appreciate the opportunity to appear for you in person to discuss this issue. It's a valuable exercise from our perspective. We attempt all the time to be a steady presence in your proceedings across many records. But hearings like this provide just a boost to those efforts for us when we can explain our position more in depth in person. So it's valuable from our perspective as well.

2437 And second of all, besides SSI, who I think is going to appear tomorrow, I think our panel is the only representation from the small service provider industry.

2438 As well, the other three members of our panel are the actual owners and operators of their companies. So they didn't give you a regulatory department’s perspective today, but the perspective of the people who are actually out there competing and who know the business from top to bottom, or centre to circumference, whichever way you want to look at it.

2439 So we hope you will carefully consider their unique perspectives that they have delivered. But thank you very much.

2440 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

2441 I will now ask Cheetah Networks to come to the presentation table.

2442 Once you are ready you can introduce yourself and you may begin.

Présentation

2443 MR. McCALLEN: Am I muted right now? Okay. The red threw me off.

2444 Good afternoon. So my name is Michael McCallen. I’m founder and CEO of Cheetah Networks. We’re based in Ottawa, a Canadian company.

2445 I want to thank you for the opportunity to share personal experience with Cheetah Networks. We do a lot in networking, mobile networking, broadband networking, rural. I have over 30 years experience. This is my first time at a hearing, so I’m listening to everyone and learning.

2446 Our focus is quality of experience. I'm a strong believer in performance and reliability, and some of those topics have been touched on when we talk about different metrics. And I recognize the complexity facing the CRTC and all the openness the listening that you're doing. This is not an easy problem to address, and part of it is the variability of all the services in the regions in the country.

2447 On the oversubscription, I actually believe that's too complex. Networks are very, very, complicated. From here to Google, depending where you are and your access method, can be over 20 hops. So trying to explain to a consumer where the oversubscription could be occurring is very complicated. There is obviously the first hop, depending on DSL, but there's all sorts of other areas where that can be oversubscribed.

2448 And packet networks were designed for oversubscription. We might rate it from SONET and SDH, or TDM networks, to design cost effective networks, and over subscription goes with that.

2449 So our view is standard independent audits of services is necessary validate the actual service levels. And it brings accountability for broadband investments, both federally and provincially. The audits can be performed in partnership with provinces in a cost‑effective manner.

2450 And a study is just completing on this in one province of Canada. I believe the CRTC is aware of that activity, but it's not public yet so I can't speak to it. Outstanding high‑quality results, strong education of the consumers, and uncovered some things expected, and things I expected were uncovered. So it can be done in a very cost‑effective manner.

2451 Clear standard labeling for minimum service levels. It can be easily done, and I don't think it prevents competition. So I think a minimum service level would be, what's the maximum latency you will receive? What is the maximum loss you will receive? I don't think you have to get down to guaranteed numbers, but people know what level they’ll get. And typically, when purchase services as consumers, we have an idea of what we're getting for that service, not what we hope to get for that service.

2452 Methods and processes need to be flexible as service expectations change. So today it's pretty standard expectation for 50/10 in this country, but that will change. A long time ago we were all content with standard‑definition TV, and then high‑definition TV came out, and now you've got a big screen, your expectation is HD, even SD was good enough.

2453 The federal government I think should set the standards, methods, and the budget, and a partner with the provinces on execution. The provinces typically have close relationships with the committees and the regional ISPs. And from my experience there's a big difference in how a Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 ISP operate and their ability to solve issues at different levels. Solving issues in the big urban centres is quite different than remote and rural locations.

2454 A method for validating service needs to eliminate home devices and home network from tests, as well as not depend on a demarcation device provided by the ISP. An independent service test device ‑‑ actually, I brought one for later ‑‑ can support all ISP configurations from wireless, to satellite, to wired, and provide a standard set of high‑quality data on how things are actually performing.

2455 And what's most important is understanding the experience that's occurring. And there's multiple dimensions to that experience, there isn't a single metric, and it may not tie directly to the operators’ quality of service that they're trying to achieve.

2456 Service devices and be nomadic. So the test devices can be nomadic, they don't need to stay in one place. There's a lot of concern about cost if you're going to test. But you can have nomadic devices that bring down the cost noticeably, and they can also be used to troubleshoot without sending technicians into the field. So it's got multiple benefits, the audit mechanisms.

2457 Utilization of minimum service levels actually eliminates complexity and ambiguity, especially around peak demand hours. Annual audit reports summarizing for Canadians the change year to year in the quality of service would provide to Canadian consumers measurement of improvements made to complement previous media announcements, visibility to programs that have executed and yielded benefits, and a baseline to compare themselves to.

2458 So actually having reports for consumers showing how you are moving the benchmark helps them tie into the press releases.

2459 Next slide.

2460 So I've actually put together a sample label that would be pretty simple. And you'll notice there I didn't use typical, I didn't use “up to”, I used minimum, right? This is why our minimum guaranteed. And this gets ‑‑ it allows one to get a little closer to an SLA type definition for the consumer, so now they know what to expect. And it doesn't take away from marketing services, because you can still market up to 500 megabits, but you'll guarantee a minimum of maybe 100 megabits.

2461 Your maximum latency. And I heard earlier, and we've done enough analytics on networks, that the assumed really small latency isn't actually what's experienced. And I think part of that is what's being measured within an operator’s network, versus what the consumer all the way to a data centre is actually experiencing. There is a chasm there. There's also variability that occurs.

2462 Jitter, I would think jitter might be too complex for the average consumer. I think just dealing with latency and loss ‑‑ now, you have high end users, an earlier speaker on gaming that's going to care about jitter. But 99 percent of your consumers, they're not going to understand what jitter is. So I think that adds ‑‑ will confuse them. I think keeping it simple will help.

2463 It’s also important to make visible, and I think it's been talked about, bandwidth or data caps. And they're both types of caps that exist. And it’s necessary to protect communities from heavy users. So you do need to have them.

2464 On costing, obviously pricing will be provided to the consumer, but I think a cost class would help them understand what to expect from what they’re paying, as opposed to them having to look at three or four dimensions and figure out am I ‑‑ what am I getting?

2465 And so I think most people understand high, medium, low. I think when people purchase things, cars, they understand the group of cars that are at the high end of the pricing and at the low end. So I think we understand that without actually needing to compare every dollar. Because I think when you get down to the $92, 67, it’s really hard for someone to compare those.

2466 And it was talked about earlier, regional service can allow for flexibility. That you’re going to get different types of services in remote versus urban. And they are going to be costed differently because of the costs of bringing those same types of services. So I think that’s important to share.

2467 Next slide.

2468 Mobile experience is becoming as important as the fixed. So in looking at broadband, and labelling, and the experience, we need to account for mobility. And the younger generation start with mobility. So those of us who been around a longer, we all started fixed and learned mobility. The younger generation starts mobility. Many are actually moving to residences and not actually purchasing a wired service. Their experiences all mobility.

2469 We're also in Canada right now, dependant on non‑Canadian suppliers for all the internet technology being used in residential and business, and that brings exposures that include privacy, cyber security, and reliability. And for sure we all know about trying to get a good satellite service, high speed satellite service in our country, we have to use a U.S. supplier.

2470 The Canadian government, in my opinion, needs to explore how to seed a Nortel type company. There was a time where we were a world leader in communications and had capability that we could leverage. If we want to regain control of our critical networking infrastructure, I think we need that. And that would include data centre technology.

2471 And I will stop there.

2472 THE CHAIRPERSON: Great. Thank you very much. I'm going to lead off the questioning.

2473 So one of the things that the new legislation compels us to do is to hold hearings to determine the methodology that's used. To determine what constitutes typical download and upload speeds for different fixed broadband services.

2474 You're an expert in the kind of testing field.

2475 MR. McCALLEN: Yes.

2476 THE CHAIRPERSON: Is there any pre‑existing, well established, well understood methodology that you think would satisfy that requirement of the legislation?

2477 MR. McCALLEN: So when you talk methodology, are you talking about how to actually do it?

2478 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yeah, it's funny, it seems like such a clear word, but I think there's various depths of methodology. Feel free to interject at whatever depth you think is most helpful.

2479 MR. McCALLEN: Well, it’s ‑‑ I mean, obviously this community is very well aware of like CIRA and those types of speed test tools, and most people actually understand the speed test terminology, because people have used it on their computers, etcetera, right? So that seems to be an accepted method. It's not necessarily the best method.

2480 There are other methods, iPerf. So can you look inside network and all the ISP's networks, they would never use speed test to do performance testing, there was a tool like iPerf.

2481 And there's the other elements of continuous monitoring. So we actually, in looking at how we do this, there's an element of periodic testing of an upload download speed. You can't do it all the time because you're going to consume the bandwidth. But the continuous testing that can ‑‑ active testing that can tell you about performance, and it can actually tell you congestions occurring without actually doing a lot of traffic.

2482 So those two methods are fairly standard. They are definitely standard in the business service world, and they are not effectively applied in the consumer world. I think part of that is the philosophy of best effort. And so, your “up to” question earlier was the whole business model is best effort. Like, if it works it works, and if it doesn't it doesn't, because we didn't sign a performance level service agreement with the customer, so you get what you get.

2483 Where in business services they can’t ‑‑ businesses can't operate that way. And Canada there's a large number of businesses operating out of residences on these networks, so they actually do need a reliable service capability.

2484 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. I think with your phrase, you get what you get, you may have put your finger on very much frustration at the heart of this.

2485 MR. McCALLEN: Oh yeah, definitely.

2486 THE CHAIRPERSON: Yeah. A simple aspect of the methodology, we do need to figure out what constitutes peak period. We’ve had proposals for kind of a fixed period that each ISP should use to report. We've had suggestions that each ISP should report on ever its own peak period is.

2487 Do you have thoughts on pros and cons of those options?

2488 MR. McCALLEN: So there's an element of peak period, I think, that is based on the work schedule and the assumption that a certain set of hours during the evening more people are using their home connections than work connections. And that does exist, but as we evolve as a society, I think that peak is not sustained to very specific hours. I think it could be occurring more often, especially with businesses operating out of homes.

2489 We have seen in that study we did, we found 50 gig, 60 gig a day usage on a single residence which is like, what is going on? So you can have that happen. So I think it's ‑‑ you can run whatever you want out of your home, I mean I list earlier to that gamer saying he downloads applications that are 100 gig.

2490 So and it also depends on how the users are using their network. So if you're a light user, and most of your neighbors are light users, and you watch YouTube streaming, do some email, maybe do a multimedia call, you're not a heavy user. You're not going go to a lot of traffic. And if you could have 100 users like that on the same shared medium it wouldn't cause an issue.

2491 It's really the profile users, and I think typically the ISPs probably see the profile users because they are tracking bandwidth usage. So I think it's dynamic. I don't think you can set a fixed, here's a peak period window.

2492 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.

2493 Are you aware of data sets that ISP's routinely collect, but don't routinely share, that might be beneficial to consumers in understanding the performance that they should expect? In other words, is there something that wouldn’t require any additional data collection, just a little bit more transparency that would advance our interests here?

2494 MR. McCALLEN: They have lots of data for sure. Some of that data they would not be comfortable sharing, because they're using it to operate their networks. So I don't think they want to air their dirty laundry.

2495 And specifically, they've got far more visibility on the mobility side, so things like drop calls, disconnects, they know exactly the reliability of their networks and the outages occurring. They have that visibility, and they have visibility to outages.

2496 The ‑‑ don't believe they've got direct visibility to the end consumer. Because it's a best effort service, they haven't put in any instrumentation for that. So if you're having a bad day on your internet they don't know it. And when you call ‑‑ if anyone has ever called, had a weird issue and called their ISP, you've discovered that they really don't know, right? They’re running on a complaint system, and they'll tell you things like, well, did you try restarting your computer? Did you restart your modem? Did you unplug it and plug it ‑‑ like there's all these really, really basic things, which would imply they don't really have that visibility. So I think they see major things, but I think at the consumer side on fixed wireline they don’t.

2497 The reason they see it on wireless is because the device has to connect and be moved from tower to tower. They're literally tracking every device and they see what's going on with those devices.

2498 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks.

2499 Before, you were talking about latency and you kind of had some general characterizations of the latency, and maybe it's not as rosy a picture as some other interveners have led us to believe. I’m interested, do you have a similar kind of, generalized take on the gap between advertised and actual speeds? How would you characterize that as kind of a broad challenge? How far off are we?

2500 MR. McCALLEN: I think it becomes community based. So I don't think you can ‑‑ I think rural remote you are much further off than you think. And I think, yeah, I probably see a lot more issues there. I think inside urban centres, and because there's so much fiber infrastructure, and so much equipment, an investment based on density.

2501 Now, you still have problems as comedies grow and they become oversubscribed and it requires upgrades. But there is a much bigger investment made there, just due to density and standard business case. I think when you get rural remote they are not getting it. So the 50/10, I see lots of it not there.

2502 I will also see exceeding 50/10, by having other issues like high latency and packet loss. So you say, okay, they meet 50/10, they’re great. Then you dig a little deeper and you go hang on, 3 percent packet loss, that's terrible. That's going to affect communication. Or high latency, or high variability in latency, that means the experience is not going to be a good one.

2503 So I think there's an assumption on paper, I heard a previous intervenor who said we are under 10 milliseconds. It’s like, no, the end consumer is not achieving that, and there is variability, and networks are dynamic. So one of the issues with trying to hard classified things, and the previous group I can relate to, is that they are software‑controlled networks now. They are not hard.

2504 So when you think about you've got this type of service, even a fiber service, the bandwidth is going to be controlled through a complex series of software. Other services like DSL and fixed wireless, distance affects the service levels. So I get the “up to”, where is I can get you this fast if you're only five feet away from a radio. We’ll get you that fast.

2505 And fixed wireless ‑‑ that term gets used a lot. There’s fixed wireless in urban, and there’s fixed wireless in rural. They are not the same thing. So, the fixed wireless in the cities is cellular‑based. When you get out in the rural remote, it’s all sorts of unlicensed spectrum and different technologies. So, the experiences are quite, quite different.

2506 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks very much. A final question from me. So, your proposal included a suggestion that there be third‑party auditing and testing, as well as a role for the provinces. That does start to suggest some additional complexity and infrastructure in the regulatory framework. Can you speak about the additional benefits that come from those proposals, that would justify any additional complexity?

2507 MR. McCALLEN: So, I think the provinces, I am going to say should. I think they do, but there’s an 80/20 rule there, so nothing is absolute. But they should have better ties to the communities. They should have closer ties, especially when you get into rural and remote, and understand the types of issues that are going on there. They have vested interest in ensuring that the residents are receiving what they should be receiving. They have the ability then to engage with the residents, and I referred to a study we’re just completing, shocked at the high participation rate ‑‑ like, huge motivation that people have to understand what they’re receiving, and could they be getting better? And there’s a lot of education that I think is needed here. So, I think what we learned is that the residents are willing to participate, positioned the right way, and they do the turn‑up themselves. So, there is no other involvement.

2508 So, in partnership, I think it can be done. I think it can be done with ISPs as well, especially those seeking funding; right? Because you need high‑quality data to justify investments being made. It’s much harder to prove what’s not there than what is there. So, it’s a tough bar, but it can be done, and we have done it. So, I do not think ‑‑ I think on one of the responses, one of the intervenors had indicated in their written response, like, a hundred million dollars ‑‑ some really astronomical number ‑‑ to try to audit the quality of services. It doesn’t cost that at all.

2509 And I am using the term “audit”; I think if you are going to persistently try to instrument the whole network to monitor it all the time, it will never work. It’s not cost‑effective. But to audit and control that audit, and do it with the provinces, because they’re vested, and both the federal government and the provincial governments are making investments on broadband, and it’s all about investing in the community. So, active participation with the communities will alleviate a lot of that.

2510 I think if you try to centrally do it ‑‑ and the reason I made the comment about a third party, it’s somewhat incestuous to audit yourself and then tell everyone, “I audit myself; I’m good.” Right? It’s like that’s not how it’s done, and what’s interesting, when I hear this being done, I go, “I’m pretty sure the service providers have not accepted from the equipment providers that it just works.” They don’t.

2511 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks very much.

2512 We are going to turn to Commissioner Desmond, who I think may want to follow up on the audit issue.

2513 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Yes, thank you.

2514 Like our Vice‑Chair, I am interested in the audit recommendation, and is this a recommendation that you have seen, or a practice you have seen, in other jurisdictions? In the States, or the U.K., or Australia ‑‑ have they used an audit approach to kind of validate service?

2515 MR. McCALLEN: There have been all sorts of jurisdictions that have attempted audits to provide, for example, 50/10, including here in Canada, and that was done previously. Unfortunately, it was a small point in time, for a very small sampling, and the data was not of high quality. When I talk of data of high quality, if you want to say a community is able to receive 50/10 and has two or three options, you have to have taken a lot of data points for enough time to actually demonstrate that. So, I think if you’re just going to ‑‑ what I’m referring to ‑‑ I think there was, like, 2,000 residences for two weeks across the country, was that study, done in Canada. That’s low‑quality data; right? If you just look how many test hours, if I give a reference to the community I’m referring to, we’re talking over 50,000 test hours in a month ‑‑ for a small community. That’s the type of concentrated analysis you need to do to actually understand what’s occurring, and what is available and not available.

2516 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: I mean, most companies that I know don't like audits, necessarily, so I’m just ‑‑ could you just speak to how willing we think providers are going to want to be to participate in an audit, and the cost? I know you suggest that community members are normally quite willing to participate, but does that impose a cost on these smaller players and smaller jurisdictions?

2517 MR. McCALLEN: So, I think I probably would not go to the service providers to say, “You need to audit yourself.” You actually ‑‑ so, with the analytics we do, especially on a ‑‑ I use a tangent ‑‑ cellular networks. I don’t need to engage any service provider and I can run analytics on their network, because I can do it with a cell phone. Right? With their SIM card. I don’t need to go to the them, and I can put a phone anywhere I want it, or a device anywhere I want it. There’s ways to do this without involving the service providers.

2518 When you’re going into a resident’s home, that’s why you need to involve the communities, and I think we did it, we’ve done it in a province, with involvement with the province. So, it was not get in a room with all the service providers and say, “Let’s go do this together”; it was done somewhat independently.

2519 There are a number of things that happened, very positive for that. There were issues that have been persistent in communities for a long time that got resolved. In one case, they almost got resolved when they showed up before they went to do the audit, because the providers knew an audit was coming, and they took action because there was going to be an audit. I remember having this discussion, “Would you tell me whether we have to go in that community?” “No.” They went and fixed it.

2520 So, I think that there’s a real positive element here, and as I said, it is not costly to do the audit approach.

2521 COMMISSIONER DESMOND: Thank you.

2522 THE CHAIRPERSON: Okay. We will go to Commissioner Abramson next.

2523 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Thanks. And thanks for being with us. It’s interesting to hear about the perspectives you’ve gathered through your work, which are obviously very related to our topic today.

2524 Let me start here. What do you think is the least cost, or a least cost, way for a given sort of mid‑sized network that runs its network in reasonable ways, that has turned on real‑time performance monitoring from its router operating systems, that has telemetry constantly streaming to collection servers, that has installed middleboxes like a SolarWinds‑type product ‑‑ what do you think is the least cost way for a network like that to gather the kinds of data that in the past ‑‑ jitter latency, packet loss, throughput ‑‑ from a user‑experience standpoint, not just on an internal network ‑‑ that we have said matter to us? Like, how would you go about instrumenting and putting that into effect?

2525 MR. McCALLEN: So, most of those systems were designed for the operator to manage their internal network. They weren’t designed around the end‑user experience, and I keep using that word “experience”. So, a lot of what’s been put out there was for quality of service. So I’m going to design a service between two points. But that doesn’t capture experience. You need to be looking at more dimensions. So, they will give you some rudimentary data, for sure, and for sure they can look at latency across their network, but they can only see what they’ve instrumented. All right? So, if you’re having a problem in a Teams ‑‑ you’re doing a multi‑site Teams session, there’s probably ‑‑ if it’s across Canada, you could be going through five or six networks; right? You’ve got your local provider, you have your exchange, your ILEC, and then you have the data centre providers, which could be Amazon, Google... So, they can’t see it all.

2526 We do quality of service ‑‑ we do it all the way to the data centre, because that’s ‑‑ most of us actually experience the internet from the endpoint to the data centre. So, I think they can give you some rudimentary information, but they’re not going to tell you what you’re experiencing right now. They’re not going to be able to tell you that your upload speed is ‑‑ you know, an hour ago it was 125 megabits per second. They can just passively see some information.

2527 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: So, in your view, any useful network quality metrics will require active measurement, by inserting traffic into the northwest?

2528 MR. McCALLEN: Active will give you the best results about what’s being experienced, yes. And that is known ‑‑ in business services, it’s active. It’s not a ‑‑ and there are passive metrics. You do need them. I’m not saying it’s an “or”; it’s an “and”. But you need to be active.

2529 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Okay. So, if we were to loosely specify a methodology as some have advised us to do, which of course we’re taking under consideration, as we do all the submissions with us ‑‑ and presumably some different networks would fulfil that kind of specification in different ways, and quite a few, I imagine, would seek to do this themselves, generating the traffic themselves and so on, without investing in a third‑party solution that we’ve talked about auditing ‑‑ one practical and in a way inevitable way in which auditing takes place is bottom‑up. Right? End‑users saying, “I don’t think I’m getting what the label said I was supposed to get,” and running whatever tests they can get their hands on, and handing those results to a complaints body like the CRTC or the CCTS, all things different intervenors have talked about.

2530 How much of the job of auditing do you think that accomplishes? In other words, at the end of the day, if you allow a range of methodologies, loosely specified but nonetheless heterogeneous, and then you have auditing that results through a complaints‑driven process, how close does that get you to a useful implementation of what we’re trying to do?

2531 MR. McCALLEN: So, I think the same methodology for auditing can be used for troubleshooting. All right? And what you brought up there is, once you get inside the home, and so, somebody runs a speed test on their computer and they say, “I’m not getting what I’m supposed to be getting,” how do you troubleshoot the home network from the gateway network from the ISP network from potentially whatever server that test is running to? Right? So, there are a lot of uncontrolled elements in that, which makes it difficult for any technical person to try to troubleshoot. I think the ability to isolate in the same methodology used for audit will work for troubleshooting the same methodology.

2532 COMMISSIONER ABRAMSON: Okay, thank you. Those are my questions.

2533 MR. McCALLEN: You’re welcome. Thank you.

2534 THE CHAIRPERSON: Thanks very much for participating. You said this is your first proceeding, so welcome, and do feel free to come back in future proceedings as well.

2535 As we always do, we would like to give you the mic to spend a minute on a final thought.

2536 MR. McCALLEN: Okay, thank you.

2537 Setting standards, including the label and regular real‑time audits, on QoE, would go a long way to improving useability to the services being received. And it’s about improving the connectivity experience, and I agree with previous speakers who spoke about we’re really just focussed on internet connectivity, and there’s other services that get bundled, and more and more, though, they all depend on the internet connectivity, or most of the video today is streamed overtop.

2538 Metrics, min/max, cost, technology type, location type ‑‑ they are needed to baseline, and not in an intention of trying to prevent competition, but an intention for a standardization that everyone can understand. It also goes towards a methodology of how you test and audit.

2539 As I said earlier, mobility is increasing, and we tend to talk a lot about broadband and fixed ‑‑ fixed wireless, DSL, fibre, cable ‑‑ even satellite, but the young generation ‑‑ they’re mobile. And so, their experience of broadband is a mobile experience, and when we look at this, we need to make sure that we consider setting standards and methodologies that will work for mobile. And it already can be confusing for people that purchase a mobile service from a fixed service, because they’re sold differently. You don’t buy a speed with your cell phone; you buy a data plan. You don’t buy a megabit or 10 megabits or 50 megabits. You don’t buy upload/download. You get what you get, and you buy a data cap. So, it’s actually a different experience that’s being sold to them. So, that can be challenging for the average person to try to gravitate around ‑‑ that they’re done differently.

2540 And encourage closer engagement with the provinces, who should be better engaged at the community level. I think that they can help here, and I think there can be more synergy between the different broadband funds, and integrating them. We are active in providing high‑quality, real‑time QoE audit and troubleshooting capability.

2541 We thank you for the opportunity to share that experience with you, and thank you for the good work the CRTC does to move the yardsticks for Canadians.

2542 THE SECRETARY: Thank you.

2543 We will resume tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. Have a great evening.

‑‑‑ L'audience est ajournée à 14 h 15 pour reprendre le vendredi 13 juin 2025 à 9 h 00

Sténographes
Deana Johansson
Monique Mahoney
Lynda Johansson
Tania Mahoney
Brian Denton