Rogers disputes the bureau’s view, stating that it will contest the allegations
Canada’s competition bureau said on Monday it was taking legal action against Rogers Communications Inc., accusing the telecommunications firm of deceiving customers into believing that certain phone plans included unlimited data.
The Competition Bureau, in a statement, said Rogers’ advertisements gave the public a ‘false or misleading impression’ that its phone plans offered the customer limitless data. In fact, the bureau said that the plans have data limits and once the data limit is achieved, the transfer speed is slowed down by more than 99 percent.
A representative for Rogers said it did not agree with the bureau’s assessment of its phone plans, which it launched in 2019, and would contest the allegations.
“These plans are typical of the Canadian market and the Bureau’s decision to focus on Rogers after five years is quite concerning,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
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The Competition Bureau has filed an application in the Competition Tribunal to compel Rogers to cease with misleading advertising, to pay a penalty and to provide restitution to the affected wireless phone plan consumers.
Canada’s competition bureau is suing Rogers Communications Inc for what it calls ‘deceptive’ marketing of its so called ‘unlimited’ data offering in its Infinite wireless phone plans.
The Competition Bureau said it learned that throttling or a reduction in data speed occurs once a subscriber has consumed a certain amount of data and has filed an application with the Competition Tribunal to compel Rogers to stop the practice.
to pay a penalty and to compensate the customers by issuing restitutions.
That is the argument the Competition Bureau, under Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell, is making, stating that after the data cap is hit, Rogers slows consumers’ speeds by more than 99 per cent. “When this happens, downloading a high-definition movie, which used to take minutes, will take hours,” the bureau said in legal filings.
Promising “unlimited” plans with data limits has been a practice in the industry for several years now, replacing the overage charges, as customers have ramped up their usage of data.
In its filing, it revealed that Rogers had over 2.5 million consumers subscribed to its unlimited plans by the end of 2023.
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At the moment, Freedom Mobile and SaskTel have similar plans for their customers on their websites. None of the other providers are mentioned in the bureau’s application to the tribunal.
Rogers stated in a press release addressing the litigation that the firm began offering unlimited data plans in 2019 in a bid to do away with overage charges and provide customers with more predictable bills.
Our advertising of the Infinite plans is accurate, and we will defend this litigation. These plans are standard in Canada and for the Bureau to focus on Rogers after five years is quite alarming,” the company said.
As with Rogers, on their websites the other providers refer to their plans as having a fixed amount of data at high speed, then data at a slower speed until the end of the subscribers billing cycle. Information about data is often placed in a drop-down list further down the company’s web page.
However, the bureau said this dropdown is not “immediately visible” and is inadequate to change the overall perception created by other forms of advertising. It noted that most of Rogers’s other advertisements for this plan – whether on billboards, subway trains or social media – do not contain this language.
