Bell admits its internet usage meter is faulty
Bell Canada admitted yesterday that its Personal Internet Tracker, the meter which tracks its retail customers internet usage and determines who much extra they must pay for exceeding their bandwidth cap, is faulty.
The admission by Bell that it was overstating Internet usage for a portion of its customers (and overcharging) only came after a Toronto Star story about Bell customers who claimed their internet usage was grossly overstated.
For example, one customer in the newspaper’s story was charged an overage charge of over $20 for using 25 GB of data of the Christmas holiday period despite being away for 12 days.
Bell Internet customers checking on their internet usage yesterday were greeted with the following message: “We have identified an issue that may cause internet usage shown on this site to be overstated in some cases. In order to ensure we provide reliable information to all our clients, the usage tracker will be unavailable while we resolve the issue.”
The company did not divulge how many customers were affected by the faulty internet meter nor what steps it would take to ensure the accuracy of its meters in the future.
The revelation that Bell’s Internet usage meters are inaccurate highlights a growing concern of many Canadians who say they have no way of knowing if their internet service providers are accurately monitoring their internet usage.
Digital Home readers tell us that if Internet costs are going to a function of usage like electricity, water, natural gas or gasoline, then they want to know the usage numbers being reported are accurate and verifiable.
In Canada, the federal agency responsible for ensuring the accuracy of measurements is Measurement Canada. To date, the federal agency has done nothing to ensure that Canadians internet billing, like their gas, water or electricity is measured accurately.
Recently Digital Home asked a series of questions to representatives of Rogers Cable and Bell Canada about usage based billing which included asking whether the respective companies were using an independent organization to ensure that internet usage was measured accurately.
While both company’s responded to our questions asking why UBB was necessary, both organizations were silent when asked about the veracity of their internet usage meters.
Digital Home followed up about why our question about the independent verification of internet bandwidth usage was left unanswered, Bell Spokesperson Jacqueline Michelis replied that “because the CRTC is the regulatory body that regulates UBB and Bell is entirely compliant with the CRTC’s rulings.”
Discuss in Digital Home’s Bell Phone and Internet Discussion forum.
Is this a surprise to anyone? They claimed that less than 0.1 % of their customers were affected but I think it’s higher than that, some customers are not aware of it and just simply pay what they are billed. I have issues with my BB9700 with Bell where I was charged 4-5 months straight for data usage that was not consumed.
Makes me want to go raging back to bell about overage fee’s I had with them years ago. It isnt even worth the time calling them up to berate them, instead I try to get as many people as possible to switch from Bell/Rogers over to TekSavvy. I’ve had with these companies to the point I have cancelled my Bell home phone and my Rogers cell phone. I couldnt support these companies any longer without feeling dirty.
When corporations make mistakes like this it taints trust we have in an already untrusting environment. As a Canadian, I have no faith in the CTRC, its influencers, and its mandate. It should be abolished and rebuilt. It should protect Canadians, not corporations.
This is not anew story at all. When I was a Bell Sympatico member I would routinely receive bills above my monthly allowance. I didn’t feel that I had used over my limit so I paid extra for the insurance that allowed me to have 40 gigs a month. I checked the usage tracker monthly and it told me that I had only used 20 gigs a month. When the bill arrived I was billed for going above the limit despite the bill and the tracker telling me I’d only used half (20 of 40 gigs). The CSR told me they’d never seen anything like that before. This went on for months until I told Bell to cancel the internet despite being locked into a contract – based on their not being able to meet their end of the contract. In the end they relented and I left without being charged an extra $100 for cancelling early. This happened almost every month and locally, Bell is the only ISP where you have to pay for a limited amount of bandwidth. Every other local ISP offers UNLIMITED. I told them why should I pay more to receive less? Never again will I go back to Bell as an ISP. Never.
Nope; not surprising at all. I get my internet through National Capital Freenet, who resells Teksavvy, who in turn would have been subjected to Bells UBB measurements. I was kinda looking forward to all the fireworks that would have happened if UBB kicked in, when all those numbers didn’t match…. getting the accounting to work properly is non-trivial. I know NCF has been working hard on trying to ensure it was working right.
I suggest anyone who had an unusual spike in their usage, as reported by the meter, that resulted in additional charges log a complaint about it with Bell and see if you get a credit back. I had one in the summer of last year I going to try a get credited back.
It costs bell 1 cents per 1 GB transferred so a 25GB of data only cost them 25 cents to serve!!!!!!!!
No surprise here! Bell is the worst company in the country.