ARCHIVED -  Telecom Order CRTC 97-1570

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Telecom Order

Ottawa, 29 October 1997
Telecom Order CRTC 97-1570
The Commission has received an application from Prince Rupert City Telephones (Prince Rupert) under Tariff Notice 15 dated 31 July 1997, for approval of tariff revisions providing for a local rate increase of $2.00 per month for residence and business primary exchange services as well as for the Business Overline and PBX trunk line rates.
File No.: Tariff Notice 15
1. Prince Rupert's application requested that its residence primary exchange, business primary exchange, Business Overline and PBX trunk line rates be made interim as soon as possible with a view to approving the $2.00 rate increase with an effective date as early as possible.
2. The Commission advised Prince Rupert that it would be more appropriate to allow subscribers to comment on the proposed increase prior to a determination by the Commission.
3. Prince Rupert submitted that the $2.00 rate increase proposed under this application is merely an acceleration of an increase already approved by the Commission for other independent telephone companies and already envisioned by the Commission for Prince Rupert in Regulatory Framework - Prince Rupert City Telephones, Telecom Public Notice CRTC 97-8, 19 February 1997 (PN 97-8).
4. Prince Rupert acknowledged that the precise amount of rate rebalancing of its local rates necessary to reduce the subsidy flowing to local services will not be known until its Phase III Costing is approved by the Commission.
5. Prince Rupert nevertheless considered that it will be necessary to implement a second $2.00 local rate increase to be effective 1 January 1999, as indicated by the Commission in PN 97-8.
6. Prince Rupert argued that it needed to accelerate the effective date of the first $2.00 rate increase in order to compensate for declining toll settlement revenues.
7. Prince Rupert submitted that in accordance with its interconnection agreement with BC TEL, the company rates, bills and collects all originating toll traffic in its territory and pays to BC TEL a percentage of revenues from such billed originating minutes, keeping the remainder as toll settlement revenues.
8. Prince Rupert submitted that it had introduced, effective 1 June 1997, a new toll discount plan tracking BC TEL's discount plan and had, accordingly, suffered a substantial drop in toll settlement revenues.
9. The Commission notes that the last rate increase approved for Prince Rupert was effective 1 August 1996.
10. The Commission notes that both Prince Rupert's subscribers and the parties to PN 97-8 were advised of the proposed increase and no comments were received.
11. In light of the foregoing, the proposed tariff revisions submitted by Prince Rupert under Tariff Notice 15 are approved with an effective date of 1 November 1997.
Laura M. Talbot-Allan
Secretary General
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