ARCHIVED -  Telecom Order CRTC 99-124

Telecom Order

Ottawa, 11 February 1999

Telecom Order CRTC 99-124

On 25 March 1998, Québec-Téléphone filed for approval an update report which included proposed revisions to its Phase III Manual in accordance with the procedures specified in Regulatory Framework for Québec-Téléphone and Télébec ltée), Telecom Decision CRTC 96-5, 7 August 1996.

File No.: 8654-Q1-01/97

1.Québec-Téléphone's update submission included various revisions to its existing revenue, investment and expense studies illustrated with amended Phase III Manual pages.

2.No parties submitted comments.

3.On 28 September 1998, Commission staff issued interrogatories to the company in order to clarify Québec-Téléphone's proposals with respect to its Fibre Optic Transmission, Maintenance and Repair, Directory, Business Solutions and Revenue studies.

4.On 8 October 1998, Québec-Téléphone filed its responses.

5.The Commission has reviewed the revisions included in Québec-Téléphone's update report and finds that, except for certain errors which the company acknowledged in its responses to interrogatories, the updates constitute improvements to the assignment process or are of a housekeeping nature and are acceptable.

6.In its interrogatory responses, the company confirmed that its proposals associated with the assignment of multimedia equipment investment, computer supervisory systems maintenance expense, directory expense as well as the basis of assignment of certain revenues and the removal of a data source were in error and proposed to correct these in its next update submission.

7.The Commission considers that the corrections to the errors referred to in paragraph 6 should be made now in order to produce a Phase III Manual that reflects the procedures approved for the production of the company's 1997 Phase III results and to provide an appropriate basis for the transition to the Split Rate Base format in 1998.

8.The company confirmed that its 1997 Phase III results are not affected by these corrections.

9.In light of the foregoing, the proposed Phase III Manual revisions filed by Québec-Téléphone in its update report are approved, subject to the corrections set out below.

10.Québec-Téléphone is directed to revise the following:

a) pages 2 and 3 of 3 of its Fibre Optics Transmission System study (BSCC 73.056) to reflect the correct assignment of Multimedia Equipment (Accounts CDX246, 262) to the Competitive Network category;

b) page 2 of 3 of its General Office Equipment study (BSCC 73.100) to indicate that, since some office equipment (Account CX811) and non-network computers and peripherals (Account CX812) are used to provide data processing for other companies or cannot be causally related to a particular category, the assignment is to all Broad Service Categories (BSCs);

c) page 1 of 3 of its Maintenance Expense study (BSCC 75.010) Appendix A to remove the assignment to Common for maintenance of COE-Computer Supervisory System (Account MR214);

d) page 2 of 2 of its Directory study (BSCC 75.641l) to indicate that the assignment of all directory and directory production centre expenses is to the Other BSC; and

e) page 2 of 4 of its Revenue study (BSCC 63.600) to include ratios of other studies as a data source.

11.In accordance with established Phase III Manual update procedures, pursuant to the revisions approved in this Order, the company is to re-file with the Commission all Phase III Manual pages included in its update and approved in this Order within 30 days.

12.Copies of the amended pages to Québec-Téléphone's Phase III Manual are to be served on interested parties within 30 days of the date of this Order.

Secretary General

This document is available in alternative format upon request and may also be viewed at the following Internet site: www.crtc.gc.ca