Bell calls on courts to overturn CRTC decision Mobile TV pricing

OTTAWA (CP) — One of the country’s biggest mobile companies is hoping the courts will overturn a decision by the telecom regulator that was aimed at creating greater price fairness for mobile TV services.

Bell Mobility Inc. has asked the Federal Court of Appeal to hear an appeal of a Jan. 29 ruling, which called the service provider’s pricing model for its mobile TV app “unlawful.’’

Bell Mobility charges $5 a month for its Bell Mobile TV service and allows customers to stream up to 10 hours of programming on their mobile devices without counting the usage against their monthly wireless data caps. It costs $3 for each additional hour. But if similar content is streamed from another source, the data used is counted, forcing customers who want the alternate programming to pay for additional bandwidth.

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission ruled the pricing model unlawful because it effectively made mobile TV services from other providers artificially more expensive and thereby uncompetitive.