Competition Bureau sues Rogers over advertising ‘unlimited’ wireless data plans

Canada’s competition watchdog is taking legal action against Rogers Communications Inc. for what it calls “misleading” representations of its unlimited data plans, alleging that the company is falsely advertising its Infinite wireless phone plans as offering unlimited data.

The Competition Bureau said it found there are significant reductions in data speed, known as throttling, after a subscriber reaches a certain data cap, and has filed an application with the Competition Tribunal asking that it order Rogers RCI-B-T to pay a penalty and issue restitutions to customers.

The Competition Bureau, led by Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell, is arguing that once the data cap is reached, Rogers throttles 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.

Offering “unlimited” plans with data caps has been commonplace in the industry for several years, replacing punitive overage fees, as consumers have increased their data consumption.

More than 2.5 million consumers subscribed to Rogers’s unlimited plans as of the end of 2023, according to the filing.

Telus Communications Inc., BCE Inc. T-T, Quebecor Inc.’s QBR-B-T Freedom Mobile and SaskTel currently advertise similar plans online. No other providers are referenced in the bureau’s application to the tribunal.

In a press release in response to the litigation, Rogers said it introduced unlimited data plans in 2019 to help eliminate overage fees and give customers more certainty over their bills.

“The advertising of our Infinite plans is clear and truthful, and we will fight this litigation. These plans represent the norm in Canada and the Bureau’s decision to single out Rogers after five years is quite concerning,” the company said.

The Competition Bureau did not directly answer a question about why it was challenging only Rogers, saying that it was required by law to conduct its work confidentially.

Like Rogers, on their websites, the other providers describe their plans as coming with a prescribed amount of data at full speed, then data at reduced speeds until the end of the subscribers’ billing cycle. Details on data are usually included in a drop-down menu lower down on the company’s web page.

However, the bureau said this dropdown is not “immediately visible” and is inadequate to alter the general impression conveyed by other advertising. It said that many of Rogers’s other advertisements for this plan – including on billboards, subway trains and social media – do not include this language.

Rogers, Bell BCE-T and Telus all throttle speeds to 512 kilobits a second after the data cap is reached. According to the bureau, “operations that could be done quickly before the throttling, become difficult or virtually impossible after data is throttled.”

The bureau launched an inquiry into Rogers’s “unlimited” data plans three days after its takeover of Shaw closed last April. Last year, the bureau obtained two court orders to gather information for its investigation of Rogers’s marketing practices.

In 2017, the bureau published the third volume of its Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest, and asked telecommunications companies to avoid using the term “unlimited” if their products were restricted, limited or qualified in some way.