Canada’s telecommunications regulator says it is working to improve internet reliability and affordability in Northern Canada after years of complaints from local residents about outages and expensive plans.
The CRTC said Thursday it will require Northwestel Inc., which provides phone, internet and television services in Canada’s north, to automatically reduce customers’ bills when internet services are disrupted for at least 24 hours.
The automatic credits will be pro-rated based on the cost of a customer’s service and the duration of the outage. For instance, if a customer is paying $100 per month and there’s an outage that lasts for 20 per cent of the month, they would receive a $20 discount on their bill.
The announcement comes after a consultation by the CRTC on improvements to telecommunications in the Far North. Originally launched in November 2020, the CRTC heard that internet prices are high in the region and that there’s not enough choice, while residents have grown used to frequent outages.
“Throughout our consultation, we heard about the challenges that residents of the Far North face in accessing internet services and the real impact that has on peoples’ daily lives,” said CRTC chair Vicky Eatrides.
“From disruptions in online learning, to the inability to access health care and emergency services, today, we are taking action to help address those challenges by making internet services more reliable and affordable.”
The regulator said it will also enhance competition by making it easier for other service providers to use Northwestel’s network to sell services to customers.
Last June, Bell Canada announced it was selling Northwestel to Sixty North Unity, a consortium of Indigenous communities from the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut, for around $1 billion.
Sixty North Unity said it was planning significant capital investment to double fibre internet speeds, expand high-speed availability and bring critical resiliency to safeguard against wildfires and other natural disasters.
The CRTC said Thursday its announcement comes with the launch of another public consultation to develop a subsidy aimed at improving affordability, which would help bring the cost of internet services in the Far North closer to those in other parts of the country.
The new consultation will be open until Feb. 18.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2025.
