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ARCHIVED -  Telecom Order CRTC 97-326

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Telecom Order

Ottawa, 7 March 1997
Telecom Order CRTC 97-326
IN THE MATTER OF an application by Canada Payphone Corporation (CPC) dated 1 November 1996, to be permitted to conduct a technical trial of its pay telephone equipment in the Vancouver area.
WHEREAS CPC stated that its trial would involve no more than 20 telephones and last for no more than six months commencing 15 March 1997;
WHEREAS CPC stated that it needs to conduct tests with the various switch types with which it hopes to connect its pay telephones upon market entry;
WHEREAS CPC stated that it also needs to test functions and features of the telephones;
WHEREAS BC TEL questioned whether CPC needs to test the Elcotel model of pay telephone it plans to offer, or the functions and features on it, in view of the fact that the Elcotel pay telephone is already in service;
WHEREAS CPC replied that the particular Elcotel model it plans to offer is not in service and requires technical testing, while the features require technical and field testing;
WHEREAS BC TEL stated that it has no arrangements with CPC and does not plan to modify its services or procedures with respect to pay telephones;
WHEREAS CPC stated that it requires no arrangements with BC TEL other than access to services available through BC TEL's General Tariff;
WHEREAS BC TEL was concerned about difficulties caused by permitting CPC pay telephone access to BC TEL's operator services, such as having to respond to complaints by CPC pay telephone users about CPC pay telephones, and requested that if the trial is permitted, access from CPC pay telephones to BC TEL operators be denied;
WHEREAS CPC noted that, currently, BC TEL's operator services are the only ones available, and requested that access to BC TEL operator services be mandated;
WHEREAS CPC stated that it would route 611 repair calls to its own premises so that BC TEL operators would have to respond only to 0-dialed calls and that it would provide to BC TEL operators a warning tone to indicate that the incoming call was originating with a CPC pay telephone;
WHEREAS CPC submitted that operator access is needed for reverse charge and third party toll billing and that it could not offer a full trial without such services;
WHEREAS, based on the record, the Commission is of the view that CPC would require the kind of information that a technical trial provides;
WHEREAS the Commission notes that in Telecom Order CRTC 96-583, 14 June 1996, it denied an application from CPC to be permitted to engage in a market trial of competitive pay telephone service because CPC had not met the test regarding enforceability of consumer safeguards and because approval of a trial of the extent and nature proposed could provide CPC an unfair advantage with respect to market entry;
WHEREAS the Commission notes that that trial involved 200 pay telephones to be operating for an undefined period of time;
WHEREAS the technical trial proposed in the current application meets the kind of objective criteria that are reflective of a trial, namely, a maximum of 20 telephones and a fixed time period of six months, so that market coverage would be very limited and there would be a specified date by which the trial service would end;
WHEREAS the current application does not meet the test regarding enforceability of consumer safeguards that the Commission previously has stated is required before competitive entry into the pay telephone market will be permitted;
WHEREAS the Commission is of the view that provision of pay telephones on the technical trial basis proposed by CPC would not constitute competitive entry into the pay telephone market;
WHEREAS the Commission notes BC TEL's concerns that some and perhaps many calls to the operator would be for complaint purposes and is of the view that BC TEL would have to modify its procedures to deal with such calls;
WHEREAS the Commission considers that BC TEL should not have to make such modifications until a competitive pay telephone regime has been established;
WHEREAS the Commission therefore considers that BC TEL should not be required to provide CPC pay telephones with the form of operator access that it provides to its own pay telephones;
WHEREAS the Commission considers, however, that CPC should have access to BC TEL's message relay service, as this is a universally available service and will not require changes to BC TEL's procedures; and
WHEREAS the Commission considers that access to local and long distance directory assistance should also be provided by BC TEL in accordance with its tariffs for such services on the basis that requests for these services would originate on BC TEL individual business lines being resold by CPC -
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:
1. CPC's application to conduct a technical trial of its pay telephone equipment is approved subject to paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 below.
2. The technical trial is to last no longer than six months.
3. BC TEL is not required to provide CPC with access to its operator services other than as required in paragraph 4 below.
4. BC TEL is required to provide CPC with access to its message relay service, local directory assistance and long distance directory assistance in accordance with its tariffs related to business individual line service.
Allan J. Darling
Secretary General

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