But that provides\u00a0little solace for Bell customer\u00a0Kelsey Shaffer, a motel owner in Kakabeka Falls, Ont., who noticed a price increase on her March 25 phone bill with Virgin Mobile, a brand owned by Bell. The combined cost of two phone plans for her family had increased by 10 per cent to $110 a month.<\/p>\n
“I was angry and upset,” she said. “Just the fact that it’s happening right now \u2014\u00a0when nobody has money and a bunch of people are out of work \u2014\u00a0is an extra slap in the face.”<\/p>\n
While the motel remains open during the pandemic, Shaffer estimates business has declined by 75 per cent since mid-March, as most people have stopped travelling.<\/p>\n
“Every penny counts right now,” she said. “It’s really, really bad optics for [Bell].”<\/p>\n
When asked by CBC News for comment and additional details about the increases, Bell spokesperson Nathan Gibson said\u00a0they affect “a portion\u00a0of internet and wireless customers” and took effect on March 1.<\/p>\n
COVID-19 was declared a pandemic on March 11. Provinces didn’t start ordering businesses to close and Canadians to stay home until later that month.<\/p>\n
Gibson said customers were warned about the coming price hikes back in December or January.<\/p>\n
“It just seems to me really thoughtless,” said Sugith Varughese of Toronto, whose internet plan with Bell went up by $6 a month on his April 6 bill.<\/p>\n
The actor, who has appeared on CBC television shows, said he hasn’t worked since mid-March, when a play he was cast in got cancelled due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n
“Going ahead with an internet price increase during a pandemic is completely unfair because I \u2014\u00a0like almost every other Canadian \u2014\u00a0am really dependent on internet now.”<\/p>\n
Some price increases\u00a0suspended<\/h2>\n
Although Bell set its price increases in motion months ago, consumer advocate Laura Tribe argues the telco\u00a0could have suspended its plans when COVID-19 turned into a pandemic.<\/p>\n
“What we’ve seen is people are adapting based on the current circumstances and it’s unfortunate Bell isn’t doing the same,” said Tribe, executive director of Open Media, an advocacy group in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Bell said it has made concessions for customers during the COVID-19 crisis, including temporarily waiving overage fees on many limited internet plans and suspending planned rate increases on select TV and home phone plans that were set to roll out\u00a0May 1.<\/p>\n
Gibson said that for customers already hit with price hikes, Bell is “happy to discuss any concerns customers may have with their accounts during this challenging time.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Shaffer, the motel owner, said she complained to Bell about her $10 monthly increase\u00a0and was offered a one-time $20 credit. She said she declined\u00a0and plans to leave Bell for another provider that offers a cheaper phone plan.<\/p>\n Varughese, the actor, also complained to Bell and said he was unsuccessful in getting a break on his price increase.<\/p>\n “They were very sympathetic, but they said, ‘No, we informed you in December.’ And I said\u00a0… ‘I’m not sure why that matters.'”<\/p>\n Some Rogers customers have also received notices about TV and internet price increases that were set to begin on April 28.\u00a0The telco announced<\/u>\u00a0on March 22 that it had suspended those increases until later this year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, TekSavvy is\u00a0raising the monthly price<\/u>\u00a0of all residential internet plans by $5 starting in May.<\/p>\n In 2019,\u00a0TekSavvy lowered prices<\/u>\u00a0on many internet plans following a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission decision to decrease the rates internet resellers\u00a0such as TekSavvy pay telcos\u00a0to access their broadband networks.<\/p>\n But due to\u00a0legal battles<\/u>\u00a0launched by a handful of telcos, including Bell and Rogers, the mandated rate change has been put on hold.<\/p>\n That suspension, along with increased internet use by customers, forced TekSavvy to raise rates, the company said.<\/p>\n “We had previously lowered rates and we as a company were taking monthly losses,” said Mike Stanford, vice-president of marketing for TekSavvy. “We needed to raise rates in order to stabilize the business.”<\/p>\n Still, some TekSavvy customers aren’t happy about the $5 increase.<\/p>\n “I was shocked,” said Danielle \u200b\u200bTremblay, a freelance communications adviser in Ottawa who says her work dried up in late March due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n “They should have at least tried to wait another month or something just because the optics are so bad.”<\/p>\n Stanford agrees the optics are terrible, but insists the company had no choice.<\/p>\n CBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While no one ever likes a price hike on their telecom bill, some Bell and TekSavvy customers are shocked\u00a0to be facing one now\u00a0\u2014\u00a0in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Internet …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":23581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3539],"tags":[16721,16387,16722],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Bell-wants-to-do-tailored-marketing-that-customizes-advertising-based-on-peoples-service-usage-patterns-similar-to-the-ways-that-companies-like-Google-and-others-have-been-doing-for-some-time.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.5405047.1587503921!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_780\/detectives-s3e8.jpg\")
<\/div>TekSavvy hikes prices<\/h2>\n