OTTAWA — An annual tally of complaints against Canada’s telecommunications companies finds that long-standing issues have persisted and even grown significantly in certain key areas since last year’s report.
The total number of complaints from Canadian telecom and TV customers over the 2017-18 period were up 57 per cent from the previous year, rising to 14,272.
What’s more, the number of issues raised in the complaints rose by 67 per cent to 30,734.
Billing issues accounted for about 40 per cent of the total and contract disputes for 35.7 per cent of the total number of issues raised, making them the two biggest sore spots regardless of the type of service.
Wireless services had the biggest number of identified issues by far, with 12,757, up 49 per cent from last year’s tally.
That was followed by 8,987 issues related to internet services, up 56 per cent from the 2016-17 report.
The report is produced by the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services, an independent body that’s funded by the industry under a mandate from the CRTC.