If you want to break up with your home phone company, you should be forced to call and give it a chance to win you back, Bell Canada argues.

Currently, when customers leave one local phone and long-distance service provider for another, the new phone company calls the customer's old provider to deliver the bad news and complete the cancellation.

'In the spirit of ensuring that you're getting the best deal in a competitive environment, that's what you should always do as a consumer anyway.'— Mel Fruitman, consumer advocate

Bell Canada and Bell Aliant Regional Communications filed an application earlier this month asking Canada's telecommunications regulator to change the rules so the customer will have to do that.

In the application to the Canada Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) dated Feb. 11, the companies argue that there is now so much competition among residential phone providers that the existing system is "no longer warranted, is detrimental to customers' interests and is an unnecessary hindrance to competition."

Bell said its proposed system would be good for customers because:

• It would allow the old provider to offer incentives to try and win the customer back.
• It would ensure that customers know about cancellation charges they will have to pay and other consequences if they switch providers.

If customers are fully informed by both companies, they could negotiate further for better terms, enhancing competition, the application said.

According to the CRTC, other parties may respond to the application in the 30 days after it was filed, and the applicants will have another 10 days to issue a counter-response. The CRTC is expected to make a decision within 10 months.

Customer should have options: advocate

Consumer advocate Mel Fruitman said Bell's arguments seem to be valid.

"But what it does certainly do is make it more difficult for the consumer to make the change," added Fruitman, vice-president of the Consumers' Association of Canada, an independent, non-profit, volunteer-based group.

Fruitman said he'd rather the onus be on the new provider to make sure the prospective customers hear the pros and cons of switching their service. He would also like the new provider to clearly suggest that customers contact their current provider to confirm the information.

"In the spirit of ensuring that you're getting the best deal in a competitive environment, that's what you should always do as a consumer anyway," he said.

But he acknowledged that some people don't have the time or don't want to "subject themselves to what they know will be a hard sell."

Customers should also have the option of going a step further and completing the cancellation themselves, Fruitman said.

However, he would also like customers to retain the option of asking the new provider to handle everything.

"I think that suits the competitive environment much better, but also then leaves it up to the discretion of the consumer," he said. "Do you want to shop around or don't you? Or do you want to take the easy way out? But the options are all yours as the customer."