ARCHIVED - Telecom Commission Letter - 8640-T66-200613069

Letter

Ottawa, 1 June 2007

File No.: 8640-T66-200613069

BY EMAIL

Mr. Willie Grieve
Vice-President
Telecom Policy and Regulatory Affairs
TELUS Communications Company

Dear Mr. Grieve:

Re:   Local Forbearance: Demonstration that competitor quality of service requirements met for the Fort McMurray exchange

This is in reply to TELUS Communications Company's (TCC) letter dated 23 May 2007 in which TCC submitted that it demonstrated that it met the competitor quality of service (Q of S) criterion set out in paragraph 242 of Forbearance from the regulation of retail local exchange services , Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-15, 6 April 2006 as modified by Order Varying Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-15 , P.C. 2007-532, 4 April 2007 (Decision 2006-15) .

TCC requested therefore, that pursuant to paragraph 63 of Application for forbearance from the regulation of residential local exchange services in Fort McMurray, Alberta , Telecom Decision CRTC 2007-18, 27 March 2007, as modified by Telecom Decision 2007-18-1 (Decision 2007-18), the Commission should issue an order declaring that TCC is forborne from regulation of residential local exchange services in Fort McMurray.

Commission staff notes that in the above application, TCC makes assumptions on how the Commission will rule in two ongoing proceedings:

• In an application dated 5 April 2007, TCC requested an exclusion from paying rate rebates for six competitor Q of S indicators because of extreme weather in British Columbia (B.C.) from November 2006 to February 2007; and
  
  
• In Incumbent local exchange carrier applications for local forbearance - Methodology to be used where quality of service (Q of S) results are excluded for purposes of the competitor Q of S rate rebate plan , Public Notice CRTC 2007-5, 13 April 2007 (PN 2007-5), the Commission sought comments on what the Commission should do when an ILEC applies for local forbearance and the Commission has approved an exclusion, for RRP purposes, of results of one or more competitor Q of S indicators for one or more months of the six-month period that the ILEC has used to demonstrate that it met, on average, the standards for each of the specified competitor Q of S indicators.  

Commission staff considers that it would be premature to consider TCC's 23 May 2007 application absent a determination in the two above proceedings.

Commission staff notes that in PN 2007-5, the Commission indicated that a determination on the issues raised therein would be issued within 60 days of the date of the Public Notice, which in this case is on or before 13 June 2007 .   Commission staff further notes that it expects to issue a determination on TCC's exclusion request of 5 April 2007 by no later than 29 June 2007 .

In light of the above, Commission staff is suspending the comment period for this application until such time as the two decisions referred to above have been issued.   At that time, Commission staff will provide further direction on process with regard to TCC's 23 May 2007 application.

Sincerely,

'Original signed by L. Fancy'

Lynne Fancy
Acting Director
Competition Implementation and Technology

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