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Letter
Ottawa, 25 February 2004
BY E-MAIL
Our File No.: 8661-R2-200317679
APPLICANTS
Mr. Kenneth G. Englehart
Vice President, Regulatory
Rogers Communications Inc.
333 Bloor Street East
9th Floor
Toronto, Ontario
M4W 1G9
Ken.englehart@rci.rogers.com
Mr. Jean Brazeau
Senior Vice President
Regulatory and Strategic Partnerships
Call-Net Enterprises Inc.
2235 Sheppard Avenue East
Atria II, Suite 1800
North York, ON M2J 5G1
regulate@sprint-canada.com
RESPONDENT
Mr. Denis E. Henry
Vice-President, Regulatory Law
Bell Canada
105 Hôtel-de-Ville
5th Floor
Gatineau, Québec
J8X 4H7
Bell.regulatory@bell.ca
Re: Part VII Application against Bell Canada - Violation of Bundling Safeguards
Further to Rogers Communications Inc.'s and Call-Net Enterprises Inc.'s (the Applicants) joint application to the Commission dated 25 November 2003 in the above-noted matter, this letter shall serve to advise the Applicants and Bell Canada (the Respondent), that the Commission has decided to adjudicate this matter on an expedited basis, in accordance with the expedited process established in Expedited procedure for resolving competitive issues, Telecom Circular CRTC 2004-2, dated 10 February 2004.
Consequently, this matter will be referred to a Panel of three Commissioners and the proceeding will include an oral hearing on 26 March 2004. The Commission will consider the written submissions from Allstream Corp., the Canadian Cable Television Association and Futureway Communications Corp., which form part of the record of this proceeding.
In view of the shortened time frames of the expedited process, please find attached in Schedule 1 a list of questions addressed to the Respondent and the Applicants. The Respondent and the Applicants shall file with the Commission, and serve on each other, their responses to these questions, no later than 8 March 2004. The responses to the questions must also be forwarded directly to Paul Godin, Director, Competition, Implementation and Technology, at paul.godin@crtc.gc.ca.
No later than 8 March 2004, the Applicants and the Respondent shall each file with the Commission, and serve on each other, a document consisting of a concise argument stating all the facts and Commission requirements and regulatory decisions relied upon in supporting their respective positions, as well as, in the case of the Applicants, a concise statement of the relief sought. This document shall be no longer than ten pages in length. The parties shall file, as an attachment, a copy of all written material upon which they rely, except material already filed on this record, Commission determinations, tariffs, tariff filings and any other similar documentation usually before the Commission in the normal course of business. The document must also be forwarded directly to Paul Godin, at paul.godin@crtc.gc.ca.
The hearing will be held on 26 March 2004, in Salon Réal Therrien on the 7th floor of the Central Building, Terrasses de la Chaudière, 1 Promenade du Portage, Gatineau, Quebec.
At the beginning of the hearing, the Applicants, collectively, and the Respondent will be accorded the opportunity to briefly address the Panel, ten minutes maximum. The parties will then be questioned by the Commission and each other. The Applicants, collectively, and the Respondent will be accorded the opportunity to briefly address the panel at the conclusion of the hearing.
The parties are required to bring with them all relevant documentation and knowledgeable personnel. An adverse inference may be drawn, if appropriate, from the failure of a party to bring all relevant documentation and knowledgeable personnel to the oral hearing.
The parties will be provided with an agenda for the hearing 2 days prior to 26 March 2004 and are required to provide to Ms. Marielle Giroux-Girard, at Marielle.Giroux-Girard@crtc.gc.ca, at least ten days prior to the panel hearing, the name(s) of the person(s) who will be attending the hearing and their area of expertise.
Parties may contact Mr. Stephen Millington at (819) 953-0632, or at Stephen.millington@crtc.gc.ca, if they require additional information regarding the hearing.
Verbatim transcripts of the hearing will be kept and posted on the Commission's web site.
Where a document is to be filed or served by a specific date, the document must be actually received, and not merely sent, by that date.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Godin
Director - Competition and Technology
Cc: Futureway Communications Corp., regulatory@corporate.fcibroadband.com
Canadian Cable Television Association, regulatory@ccta.com
Allstream Corp., iworkstation@allstream.com
Schedule 1
Interrogatories to the Respondent
1. In Bell Canada's promotional material for its consumer bundles that the Applicants filed with their application, Bell Canada states that "the Bundle" provides, among others, "the convenience of a single bill". Further, in the promotional material, Bell Canada states that One Bill is only available to Bell Canada local phone service subscribers:
a. Explain why, given the benefit resulting from the convenience of a single bill, Bell Canada's four consumer service packages do not constitute a bundle of regulated and forborne services for which Bell Canada should file a tariff, pursuant to GT Group Telecom Services Corp. v. Bell Canada - Non-compliance with bundling rules, Telecom Decision CRTC 2002-58, 20 September 2002 (Decision 2002-58);
b. Can consumers who are not Bell Canada local telephone service customers, choose to receive a single bill when subscribing to one of Bell Canada's consumer service packages? If not, why not? Can this limitation be overcome by changes to the back office systems?
c. How does Bell Canada bill non-local service subscribers who subscribe to one of its consumer service packages?
d. What percentage of consumer bundle customers opts for the One Bill Option?
e. Provide the business case that was presented to the Bell Canada Executive team to support the rollout of the One Bill Option to Consumer Bundle Customers. In particular, provide the data used to support the cost benefit analysis of the cost of integrating the various billing systems and data bases, versus the value the customers place on a single bill and the projected retention power of a single bill on a consumer;
2. Provide Bell Canada's training material to its customer service representatives (CSRs), regarding bundling of forborne services and bundling of forborne and non-forborne services, between Decision 2002-58 and until Call-Net's complaint of 6 October 2003.
3. Provide Bell Canada's report, in its entirety, and Bell Canada's conclusions of its investigation commissioned following Call-Net's complaint of 6 October 2003, and that Bell Canada referred to in paragraph 8 of its Answer of 29 December 2003, including, but not limited to:
a. The dates when the investigation was conducted;
b. The number of calls carried out by Bell Canada and/or any outside firm on behalf of Bell Canada to its CSRs;
c. The types of information requested from Bell Canada's CSRs by Bell Canada and/or any outside firm on behalf of Bell Canada; and
d. The number of calls where Bell Canada's CSRs advised that Bell Canada's local exchange service was a prerequisite for the consumer service packages.
4. Provide Bell Canada's report, in its entirety, and Bell Canada's conclusion of its investigation, together with the outside firm's report in its entirety, together with any related documents between Bell and this consultant, that was commissioned by Bell Canada following the Applicants' filing in November, 2003, and that Bell Canada referred to in paragraph 10 and 11 of its Answer of 29 December 2003, including, but not limited to:
a. The dates when the investigation was conducted;
b. The number of calls carried out by Bell Canada and/or any outside firm on behalf of Bell Canada to its CSRs;
c. The types of information requested from Bell Canada's CSRs by Bell Canada and/or any outside firm on behalf of Bell Canada; and
d. The number of calls where Bell Canada's CSRs advised that Bell Canada's local exchange service was a prerequisite for the consumer service packages.
5. Provide Bell Canada's training material to its CSRs regarding bundling of forborne services and bundling of forborne and non-forborne services, between 6 October 2003 and 25 November 2003.
6. Provide the outside firm's report in its entirety, together with any related documents between Bell Canada and this consultant, that was commissioned by Bell Canada following the second training program, and that Bell Canada referred to in paragraph 15 of its Answer of 29 December 2003.
7. Provide Bell Canada's training material to its CSRs regarding bundling of forborne services and bundling of forborne and non-forborne services since 25 November 2003.
8. At paragraph 16 of its Answer of 29 December 2003, Bell Canada states that it intends to conduct periodic refresher training and testing of its CSRs. Indicate whether Bell Canada has conducted additional training and testing of its CSRs since 29 December 2003. If so, provide:
a. The dates when the training and testing was conducted;
b. The number of calls carried out by Bell Canada and/or an outside firm on behalf of Bell Canada to its CSRs;
c. The types of information requested from Bell Canada's CSRs by Bell Canada and/or any outside firm on behalf of Bell Canada; and
d. The number of calls where Bell Canada's CSRs advised that Bell Canada's local exchange service was a prerequisite for the consumer service packages.
9. Why did the investigation carried out following Call-Net's 6 October 2003 complaint not reveal any problems regarding the information provided to customers by Bell Canada's CSRs when the outside firm found problems and this was after the initial training had been carried out? What ongoing processes has Bell Canada put in place to ensure that it will provide accurate and timely information regarding Bell Canada's regulatory obligations in its training to its CSRs, not only with regard to its bundling offerings, but also with regard to any other service offerings by Bell Canada? What ongoing processes has Bell put in place and will put in place to test whether its CSRs provide accurate and timely information regarding Bell Canada's regulatory obligations, not only with regard to its bundling offerings, but also with regard to any other service offerings by Bell Canada?
10. Provide a template for a report that sets out all key indicators captured in the outside consultant's report with respect to the information provided by the CSRs on Consumer Bundles.
Interrogatories to the Applicants
1. Indicate whether the Applicants made any other inquiries regarding Bell Canada's consumer bundles, than those conducted on 23 October, 3 and 4 November 2003. If so, provide the following:
a. Date on which the inquiries were made;
b. The number of inquiries made;
c. Bell Canada's CSRs' responses to the inquiries; and
d. A transcript of the inquiries.
2. Provide a full transcript of all the inquiries made by the Applicants on 3 and 4 November 2004.
Date modified: 2004-02-25
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