OTTAWA -- Beginning early in the new year, Canadian consumers will no longer be required to give 30 days notice to cancel or switch their cable, Internet or telephone subscriptions.
And the country's telecom regulator is hinting of more changes to come, including the prospect of regulating "disruptive" online video services such as Netflix.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced Thursday it is banning service providers -- including new entrants offering over-the-Internet phone service -- from demanding a 30-day cancellation period for contracts.
The regulator said it got an earful about the requirement during recent public consultations on the future of television broadcasting and distribution.
"Consumer groups and individual Canadians expressed a desire to see these policies eliminated," the CRTC said in a statement.
The move will make it easier for consumers to take advantage of Canada's competitive market for cable, Internet access and Internet-based phone services, also known as VOIP, the commission said.
The order, the first to come out of the CRTC's Let's Talk TV public hearings in September, goes into effect Jan. 23.
The regulator issued a similar order to cellphone service providers that was enacted in December last year.
The September hearings saw the CRTC embroiled in a spat with online services providers Netflix and Google after the video distribution giants refused to provide sensitive corporate information, even after promises of strict confidentiality.
In a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade on Thursday, CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais again criticized both companies for failing to provide verifiable documentation to back their claims about Canadian content and subscriber numbers.
And while Blais held out the continued prospect of regulating the firms, he said such a move is not on his immediate radar.
"There is one thing I can share: 'regulating' Netflix is the least of our concerns," Blais told the business audience.
"Whether we choose to attack these disruptive services or learn from their success will be our regulatory decision to make and ours alone."
Blais said it could be several months before he issues new directives affecting the future of the broadcast industry and dismissed critics who accuse the CRTC of being a regulatory "dinosaur."
"No one will benefit from a reckless regulator," he said.
"If this is acting like a dinosaur, I will wear that label proudly."
The CRTC recently held separate hearings on wholesale wireless services.
A new set of public consultations delving into the wholesale "wired" telecommunications services marketplace is set to begin Nov. 24.
