Free local calls to stay - confirmed [15 February 1998]
CWC have confirmed that unmetered local calls will stay for ex-Videotron subscribers. Chris Ward spoke first to a customer service representative, and then to CWC themselves, and here's what happened:
Following rumours that the customer services staff were still saying the free calls would be abolished, I called them myself and spoke to Jason. I told him I’d heard a rumour the local calls were being abolished in June, and he replied, 'You have better information than we have. I'm not saying it's true or it's not true. Obviously eventually they will be abolished, because we're not Videotron any more. Where did you hear this?' From a friend, I said. 'It will happen at some point eventually as we're CWC now, not Videotron any more, and we've got to get rid of the old stuff, but it's under review at the moment and we've not been told when they will go.
I then called the PR department, and told them about the above conversation. The PR person replied, 'What they’re talking about is an assumption, and I must apologise it’s not been communicated to the customer services people, that all customers will be rationalised onto CWC tariffs. I’ve spoken to the man who decides on the tariffs within our consumer marketing department and there are no plans at all to remove the free local calls.'
No plans ever? I asked.
'We are looking at ways in which we might be able to keep the free local calls within the old Videotron network while moving those subscribers onto tariffs that are closer to the CWC prices, which are obviously significantly cheaper across the board. At the moment there’s about 110,000 customers on the old Videotron prices. Of those we’ve had 250 say they’d like free local calls to stay as they use them for PC use to access the Internet - the majority, we assume in region of 97 percent, use them just for phone calls and so it would be in their interest to move to the CWC tariffs.'
So does this, I asked, mean they’re losing money on those old Videotron subscribers?
'No, because the Videotron prices are higher so we make more profit than from CWC tariffs. Obviously from an administrative point of view and keeping customers loyal, we want to make sure they’re on the right tariff.'
The reason people hear different bits of information at different times is, he said, simply that, if they mailed all 110,000 Videotron customers on the same day, 'We couldn’t cope if all phoned on one day to change.' And, he added, 'As regards the future, we’re still deciding how best to work it and want to retain our customers on the best package possible for them.'
What Chris found has been confirmed by my contacts. So sense has prevailed: pity it took eight months to do so.
An unresolved mystery is the 23 January letter from Graham Wallace which stated that the decision to remove unmetered local calls had been made; I can only assume that what it said has been overtaken by events. CWC seem to have retreated into their shell and stopped answering emails and letters, so there may never be an explanation.
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