I have been
exchanging e-mail with a user in East Algoma about the high cost of Bell data
hub service. He was getting monthly bills in the $200.00 - $350.00 range
for a 4 user household with a mix of computers and smartphones. All the hardware used the data hub’s WiFi
capability when they were within range.
Of late, he
was getting cutting off at $100.00 overage and had to contact Bell to get
reconnected.
Needless to
say, he was not happy with both the price and the procedures.
I received
the following info from him recently:
“I just
received my Dec Bell bill and low and behold the max charge for data over 10 GB
is $50.00.
We used $197 worth and they only charged $50 for that and waived $147.50.
Our bill for the month is $96.05; Relief finally.
I was suspicious and call them. It’s due to the CRTC Wireless Code.”
This is the
section of the Wireless Code that would seem to apply in this case:
Sec 3 - Cap on data overage charges
A service provider must suspend data overage charges once they
reach $50 within a single monthly billing cycle, unless the customer
expressly consents to pay additional charges.
A service provider must provide this cap at no charge.
My interpretation of this section was that once the cap was
within reach during a billing cycle, the vendor would contact the user,
normally by e-mail or SMS, notify them of the cap limit coming into force and
warning this would result in a cancellation of service until the end of the
billing cycle unless the user gave explicit permission to charge additional
overage fees.
Indeed, this is what was happening prior to 02 Dec 2013 when
the CRTC Wireless Code came into effect.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the January
billing cycle.
If this is in fact the long term Bell policy for handling
data hub overages, it will certainly be of tremendous benefit to rural
broadband (high speed) Internet users.
