Using your own phone rather than buying one offered by your provider, a trend that was escaping in North America, is now a well-established reflex in Canada. And while consumer complaints are down, 15% have still filed one within the year and 21% have changed supplier in the past two years, reveals a survey commissioned by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
The document that The Press obtained from the federal agency also paints a highly accurate portrait of consumers, based on a survey of 1,671 Canadian adults conducted in December 2022. The CRTC is conducting this exercise, commissioned this year from the Phoenix firm for 113 $466, since 2014, which allows trends to be identified.
Unknown Codes
The first, persistent trend: very few Canadians are aware of the three consumer protection codes that apply to wireless services, internet services and television providers. No less than 80% of respondents simply have “no memory” of these codes, while only 5% claim to remember them clearly. Last year, the proportions were 76% and 4% respectively.
Yet these codes are notable wins for consumers. Established in 2013, the Wireless Code notably prohibits service providers from imposing charges of more than $50 on their customers who consume too much data. In 2017, another code came to regulate television service providers: they must inform their customers of the existence of a basic package. Finally, since 2020, the Internet Services Code prohibits the imposition of a limit on so-called “unlimited” residential internet plans and makes clear display of prices mandatory.
Owners and Subscribers
For the first time since the implementation of this survey, we also find almost as many subscribers to wireless services arriving with their own phone, what is called “BYOD” in English, as those buying a phone offered by their supplier. Note that 11% of consumers, in addition, choose to rent their telephone, a question that the CRTC only added in 2022; 9% of respondents had then indicated that they had chosen to rent.
In all, 88% of respondents have a wireless plan with data. Interestingly, the growing popularity of “unlimited data plans,” which actually offer reduced speeds after a certain number of gigabytes, seems to be waning. “The growing trend towards plans offering an unlimited amount of data that we had observed in 2022 stopped at 18%”, we note.
The two most popular categories of data plans are those offering between 1 and 5 GB, as well as 6 and 10 GB. They attract 16% of consumers each. The vast majority of respondents, 75%, have not had to pay data overage charges in the past 12 months; 17% said they had to do it “once or twice”.
Complaints down
Relations between Canadian consumers and their wireless providers have certainly improved since 2014, as CRTC surveys show. While 26% of them had filed a complaint in 2014, only 15% did so in the report for 2023. In Quebec, satisfaction is even greater: 95% of respondents did not complained in the most recent survey.
There are, however, differences within consumer groups across Canada. Members of what the CRTC calls “racialized communities”, for example, filed a complaint in a proportion of 21%, compared to 12% of “non-racialized”.
The most frequent reason for complaint was the inadequate quality of service, for 43% of respondents; 36% also complained about wrongly billed fees. In the overwhelming majority of cases, 92%, complaints were made directly to the supplier. Barely 6% of consumers have done so with their provider and the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS). No one filed a complaint only with the CCTS.
Finally, 21% of respondents have decided to change supplier in the last two years, a slightly increasing trend. They were 16% to have declared this change in 2018. The main reason, cited in 69% of cases: “Another supplier presented a better offer. In 26% of cases, the consumer was dissatisfied with the services. In all, 83% found it easy to switch suppliers.
With the collaboration of William Leclerc, The Press