Regular readers of this column will be familiar with my extended “battle” with the telephone company to keep a so–called copper landline to my house. After almost a decade, it has come to an end.
To recap, about 10 years ago my municipality in Metro Vancouver became the test area for an initial rollout of fibre to the home by telecom giant Telus, with the promise of untold bandwidth and media services. That’s fine, I’m familiar with media hype from technology companies, and I’m certainly no Luddite (I have fast internet and good TV service from the competing cable company.) But I decided I wanted to keep my copper landline home phone service.
My Telus landline has never in 40+ years failed me, and when a multi–day power outage affected this area, the phone kept right on working. Besides, over time I determined that I had been paying far too much for landline service (it peaked at around $32 a month). Through my mother of all people, I learned I could get the monthly rate down to about $10, which I eventually did.
Once Telus fibre to the home arrived in my municipality, the regular upgrade calls from the company began. Invariably the theme was that copper landline service was to be shut down imminently (three months was often mentioned) and I needed to book a copper-to-fibre conversion. Each time I would politely press for an actual shutdown date, and each time, usually after a consultation with a higher–up, the answer would come back that there was in fact no specified date.
Fast forward several years and all that came to a head in recent months when Telus began sending registered letters to copper holdouts in my area. “Book an appointment to convert to fibre or your line will be shut down,” was essentially the message. This time there was a specific date – June 6.
I phoned to seek confirmation. One department said, no, there was nothing listed; another said the shutdown date was set in stone.
“IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED” blared the last form letter. “We’re shutting down the copper network in your area. The infrastructure and facilities that support your copper–based services will no longer exist.”
Initially I chose to ignore the letters, but the company had another trick at the ready. It sent me an email saying I had cancelled my landline service.
I had done nothing of the sort. It was clear that the company was playing hardball. Furthermore, the email arrived at 3:45 p.m. June 5, just hours ahead of the indicated cancellation time, listed as the early hours of June 6.
Because Telus cell phone service is unreliable in my area I felt I had no choice. I threw in the proverbial towel and booked a fibre conversion for June 6, the next day. I carefully went over the terms: no change in price, no change in service features, and a free UPS – an uninterruptible power supply to keep the fibre hardware running in the event of a power outage. And a promise that the service would not be shut down in the interim.
At the appointed time a very polite and experienced technician arrived and proceeded to install the necessary equipment. Everything went smoothly and the switchover was seamless.
A little later as I was driving away from my house I saw a neighbour. The same Telus technician was at work there. In his case, the company had in fact shut down his copper service at midnight. He was livid, particularly because he had an elderly parent who had on occasion needed 911 support living with him. He said Telus offered a $150 credit for the roughly 12-hour loss of service.
Of course, a story like this wouldn’t be complete without further woes. Fast forward a month. The first bill arrived – nearly three times the cost of the previous service. There were many lines of obfuscation and a rebranding of the service to Home Phone Lite.
Needless to say, I was on the phone (yes, over fibre this time) to get that bill fixed.
It took an hour, but eventually the loyalty person assigned to the matter (“Oh, Mr. Vogel, you’ve been a customer for so long. Telus values customers like you”) fixed the exorbitant billing, rolled it back to the roughly $14 a month I’d been paying the past year or so, and took off a further $2 a month for 24 months.
I haven’t succeeded in getting the landline bill down to the $9 and change my mother is paying, but at least I’m getting close. Will there be more billing errors or sudden unexplained increases? I suspect there will be.
Has the copper network really been shut down? I doubt it. After all, my line kept working after the supposed set time.
Does the company have the right to do what it is doing? Yes, that it does. Some readers of these columns have investigated this with the CRTC, Canada’s telecom regulator. Reader Debbie Baarschers has had her own long–running battle with Telus. She learned from the CRTC that the company only has an obligation to provide phone service. Whether that be via copper or fibre, or indeed any other means, is completely up to the provider. She’s still dealing with unresolved billing and technical issues after the switchover to fibre.
Telus has no obligation to maintain its copper network. That may prove short–sighted. In some countries – the Netherlands comes to mind – the copper infrastructure must be maintained as a backup in case of disaster, even though that country is basically completely served with fibre.
For me, the “war” has ended. I’ve lost. However, I suspect skirmishes like mine will be ongoing as the company continues to deploy its fibre networks across the province, and elsewhere in Canada.
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