A CRTC decision issued yesterday seems to simultaneously be right and wrong in the wake of a week long service outage last October.
Under the CRTC’s competitor rate rebate plan, carriers have to compensate their wholesale customers when service levels are below certain standards. Among other instances, at issue in this case were a couple cable cuts caused by third parties – big ones: an 1800 pair/26 gauge cable and a 1200 pair/24 gauge cable cut by a sewer contractor in London.
No question that Bell Canada did not have control over the causes of the service outage to Primus. That confirms the correctness of the decision from the CRTC. But neither Primus nor its customers had control over the outage. Something is wrong if they aren’t compensated.
I hope the construction contractors are being held accountable for the damages.