Internet is the second most complained about service, and complaints about insufficient Internet speeds fall within our mandate. We track these speed complaints under a category we call “quality of service”, which is a basket of issues that includes complaints about slow Internet speeds as well as other service issues, such as service outages.

Quality of service is the problem most most frequently raised by Internet customers, accounting for about 17% of all Internet problems raised last year. In a recent audit, we found that complaints specifically about Internet speed accounted for about 25% of all of the quality-of-service concerns raised by Internet customers. In these complaints, customers told us they weren't getting the speeds they thought they had contracted for or that they didn't understand that the speeds displayed in their plans were the maximum speeds that might be made available to them.

In most of these complaints, we also found that the provider actually offered a lower-tiered plan that might have better suited the customer, considering the actual speeds available to them.

CCTS's mandate is to determine whether the service provider met its contractual obligations to the customer. When investigating a complaint, we review the provider's obligations to the customer, which are contained in their terms of service; their policies; the customer's contract and the CRTC codes of conduct.

We note that the CRTC codes do not contain any obligations with respect to speeds or performance and that currently there's no requirement for service providers to include any speed metrics in customer contracts. When investigating a complaint, we also consider what disclosure was made to the customer about speed guarantees and performance expectations when they subscribed to the service. If we find a discrepancy between expected and actual speeds, we look at whether the customer is on the best plan for their needs.

For example, if a customer is on a 100 megabits per second plan but is only getting 25 megabits per second, we'll examine the service provider's tier of plans and propose a more appropriate plan in light of the actual speeds the customer is receiving and require the provider to reimburse the customer for the difference between the two plans.

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