Providers tussle over regulations to prohibit call traffic

TORO N TO Small and large telecommunications providers are facing off over whether Canada needs regulations to stop traffic pumping, a practice associated with free conference call lines and adult entertainment lines.

BCE Inc. and its subsidiary Northwestel called on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to create a nationwide standard to deal with the tactic that involves artificially directing call traffic to areas with high termination fees — the fee a long-distance carrier pays to the local carrier to deliver the call — and sharing the revenue with the company providing the “free” conference call.

Under Bell’s proposed scheme filed with the CRTC, it wants to ban revenue sharing designed to encourage traffic pumping. It would be up to a local carrier to prove it isn’t traffic pumping or the incoming call carrier wouldn’t have to pay them. U.S. regulators have already established similar rules, Bell noted, adding its proposal would help avoid “whack-a-mole” enforcement.

The traffic-pumping issue bubbled to the surface late last year when Rogers Communications Inc. accused Iristel of working with a call-in radio service to send traffic to the Northwest Territories where termination fees are 40 times higher than the rest of Canada.

It asked the CRTC to step in, stating it might have to exclude the North from unlimited long distance plans if the practice continued. Iristel denies any wrongdoing, though the CRTC has yet to rule on the matter.

Shaw Communications Inc. supported Bell’s proposal outright, with Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. also backing the spirit of the regulations but not the exact enforcement proposal, according to documents posted online.

But smaller providers, including the Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc., have urged the CRTC to deny Bell’s application in full.

Bell did not provide any evidence there is a broad issue to be addressed and could only come up with one example of a traffic pumping allegation against Iristel, CNOC submitted to the CRTC.

“Even then, Bell admits that the assumptions on which its single allegation is based are ‘not determinative’, and that the increase in traffic ‘has not resulted in significant funds being paid to Iristel,’” according to its intervention.

Under Bell’s proposed prohibition, it would be able to penalize operators such as Iristel based on allegations without a regulator stepping in to determine whether the accusations were true, CNOC stated. .

Traffic can increase for legitimate reasons, such as a new customer that provides call centre services, CNOC noted.