Iristel has lost its bid to reopen a regulatory decision allowing Northwestel to disconnect its services for one day in August 2024, after the companies failed to settle a payment arrangement before an extended deadline.
In Telecom Decision CRTC 2026-265, issued October 9, 2026, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rejected Iristel Inc.’s application to review and vary its earlier ruling. The Commission found no substantial doubt about that ruling’s correctness.
The result concerns the justification for a historical disconnection on August 7, 2024. Northwestel reconnected the services the next day after the companies reached a deferred-payment agreement. The decision does not authorize a new outage, award compensation or establish a general right to disconnect any customer that owes money.
Several deadlines preceded the cutoff
The dispute began with notices in September 2023 that Iristel’s accounts were not in good standing. Iristel sought regulatory intervention, but a June 2024 decision required it to pay or negotiate a payment plan.
Northwestel subsequently set a July 30, 2024 deadline, extended it to August 6 and then extended it again to noon on August 7. No agreement was in place when that last deadline passed.
After the disconnection, Iristel challenged Northwestel’s right to cut off services when Iristel said it was prepared to arrange payments. Its application also raised interconnection billing and late-payment charges, and sought an administrative monetary penalty against Northwestel.
The Commission rejected that application in Telecom Decision 2025-246. It found no breach of Northwestel’s tariff or section 25 of the Telecommunications Act, no breach of the relevant shared-cost interconnection arrangements, and no basis for the requested penalty. Iristel then asked the Commission to revisit the decision.
Late negotiations did not establish a factual error
A review-and-vary application is not simply another opportunity to argue the original dispute. Under the Commission’s framework, an applicant must show substantial doubt about the decision’s correctness, such as a material error of law or fact, a fundamental change in circumstances, or failure to consider a basic principle raised in the original proceeding.
Iristel alleged two factual errors and said they led to a legal error in applying Northwestel’s tariff.
First, it argued that waiting until late in the process to negotiate was a legitimate commercial tactic, not evidence that it was unwilling to reach a payment agreement. It said negotiations had begun by August 2 and it expected a relatively straightforward arrangement.
The Commission found no error. A party choosing to negotiate in the final days assumed the risk that an agreement would not be completed before the deadline. In the circumstances, Iristel’s approach could reasonably be understood as indicating an unwillingness to enter a payment arrangement, even if Iristel regarded the timing as a business strategy.
Changes went beyond removing an affiliated account
Second, Iristel disputed the earlier finding that it had made significant changes to the proposed agreement. It said Northwestel had included an account belonging to affiliated Ice Wireless and had invited its removal. Iristel maintained that it returned a signed version reflecting the changes discussed, without altering other financial terms.
The Commission examined the correspondence and rejected that account of the edits. The changes went beyond removing the Ice Wireless account: they also removed deferred-payment amounts.
Amounts, instalments, payment schedules and related charges were central to the agreement. Removing payment amounts was therefore significant, not a minor drafting adjustment, and the Commission found no factual error in its previous conclusion.
The tariff turned on reasonable grounds
The final issue was the tariff’s protection for a customer prepared to enter or honour a reasonable deferred-payment arrangement.
The Commission stressed that the question was not Iristel’s actual, subjective intention. It was whether Northwestel had reasonable grounds, at the time of disconnection, to believe Iristel was not prepared to enter or honour a reasonable arrangement.
Northwestel had granted repeated extensions. Discussions the day before disconnection had still produced no agreement, and the final deadline expired without one. With neither alleged factual error established, the Commission also rejected the claimed legal error.
The review application was dismissed. The ruling leaves the earlier, fact-specific tariff decision intact: a customer’s stated willingness to negotiate did not, on this record, outweigh the missed deadlines and unresolved payment terms.
