ARCHIVED -  Telecom Order CRTC 99-829

Telecom Order

Ottawa, 25 August 1999

Telecom Order CRTC 99-829

On 30 December 1997, the Société d'administration des tarifs d'accès des télécommunicateurs (SATAT) filed an application, on behalf of its participating member companies, for approval of tariff revisions pertaining to the introduction of equal access in their respective territories.

File No.: Tariff Notice 3

1.On 28 January 1998, AT&T Canada Long Distance Services Company [now AT&T Canada Corp.] (AT&T Canada) filed comments. On 11 February 1998, Bell Canada (Bell) also filed comments.

2.AT&T Canada submitted that the PIC processing charges of the independent telephone companies are of significant interest to interexchange carriers (IXCs). The company noted that SATAT proposed a PIC processing charge that is far in excess of the $2.13 charge per access line approved by the Commission for the Ontario Telephone Association (OTA) member companies.

3.Bell submitted that a comparison of the SATAT PIC/CARE rates to those of the other independent local exchange carriers' PIC/CARE tariffs indicates that some of these charges, in particular the PIC processing charge, appear to be out of line.

4.AT&T Canada and Bell requested that the Commission direct SATAT members to place on the public record a copy of their cost study to support these charges.

5.On 9 February 1998, SATAT filed an unabridged copy of a cost study related to the PIC Processing charge and the Unauthorized PIC Change charge.

6.AT&T Canada and Bell filed additional comments on 25 February 1998 and 2 March 1998, respectively.

7.AT&T Canada submitted that the SATAT members are much smaller telephone companies than Bell and might accordingly be expected to have slightly higher costs related to PIC processing.

8.AT&T Canada noted that all of the PIC-related rates proposed by SATAT mirror those used by Bell, with the exception of the PIC processing charge. AT&T Canada submitted that there are additional costs in the SATAT PIC processing charge cost study that were not included by Bell in its cost study. AT&T Canada submitted that these inclusions are inappropriate, since they increase the SATAT PIC processing charge to a level nine times higher than that of Bell.

9.AT&T Canada noted that the OTA, whose members exhibit characteristics similar to those of the SATAT members, have adopted a PIC processing rate equivalent to Bell's.

10.AT&T Canada submitted that the PIC processing charge proposed by SATAT is prohibitively high and will essentially erect a barrier to competitive entry in the territories served by SATAT members.

11.AT&T Canada submitted that the IXCs already face high costs carrying interexchange traffic into the independent telephone companies' territories. AT&T Canada argued that the approval of such an exorbitant PIC processing fee would reduce the already minimal incentives for alternate providers of long distance services to serve new customers in these companies' territories and deprive their customers of the benefits of competition.

12.Bell submitted that the cost study filed by SATAT provided insufficient detail to support the rates proposed in Tariff Notice 3. Bell requested that the Commission direct SATAT to submit a detailed breakdown to support the rates included in SATAT's PIC/CARE tariff before final approval is granted.

13.The Commission considers the cost inclusions in the study filed by SATAT are appropriate.

14.The Commission considers that, on a preliminary basis, the proposed rates for PIC processing and for unauthorized PIC change requests are reasonable in view of the number of switches that would be involved and the manual process that was proposed.

15.The Commission further notes that any PIC processing costs not recovered through these rates would be recovered through the carrier access tariff.

16.In light of the foregoing, the Commission orders that:

The proposed tariff revisions are granted interim approval.

Secretary General

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