ARCHIVED - Telecom Commission Letter - 8652-C12-200704636

Letter

Ottawa, 7 August 2007

File No.: 8652-C12-200704636

BY E-MAIL

To: Interested parties to PN 2007-4

Subject: Review of certain Phase II costing issues, Telecom Public Notice CRTC 2007-4, 30 March 2007 (Public Notice 2007-4) - Request for disclosure of information for which confidentiality was claimed

This letter addresses the request for disclosure of information for which confidentiality was claimed and filed in the proceeding initiated by Public Notice 2007-4 which was inadvertently not addressed in the Commission staff's letter dated 30 July 2007.

On 13 July 2007 , the following parties filed requests for further responses to interrogatories and/or requests for disclosure of information for which confidentiality had been claimed: Cybersurf Corp., MTS Allstream Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., Cogeco Cable Canada Inc., Quebecor Media Inc., and Shaw Cablesystems.

On 20 July 2007 , the following parties filed with the Commission responses to the above requests: Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership, and Bell Canada, MTS Allstream, Saskatchewan Telecommunications (SaskTel) and TELUS Communications Company.

On 30 July 2007, Commission staff issued a letter disposing of requests for disclosure of information for which confidentiality was claimed and for further responses to interrogatories to interested parties filed in the proceeding initiated by Public Notice 2007-4.   In this letter, the Commission staff required the companies to disclose depreciation study information but inadvertently did not require the same level of disclosure with respect to SaskTel's depreciation studies.   Accordingly, for the reasons set out below, SaskTel is required to disclose the depreciation study information as identified in the attachment to this letter.   This information is to be filed with the Commission, and served on all interested parties, by 17 August 2007.

The above material must be received, not merely sent, by these dates.

Request for Disclosure

Requests for disclosure of information for which confidentiality has been claimed are addressed in light of sections 38 and 39 of the Telecommunications Act and section 19 of the CRTC Telecommunications Rules of Procedure (the Rules).   In evaluating a request, an assessment is made as to whether there is any specific harm likely to result from the disclosure of the information in question.   Further, in order to justify a claim of confidence, any such harm must be sufficient as to outweigh the public interest in disclosure.   In making this evaluation, a number of factors are taken into consideration, including the following:

The degree of competition that exists in a particular market or that is expected to occur is an important consideration in assessing requests for disclosure.   All things being equal, the greater the degree of actual or expected competition, the greater the specific harm that could be expected to result from disclosure.

Another factor in assessing the extent of harm is the expected usefulness of the information at issue to parties in furthering their competitive position.   In this regard, an important consideration is the degree to which the information at issue is disaggregated.   Generally speaking, the more aggregated the information, the less likelihood that harm will flow from its disclosure.

The expectation that specific direct harm might result from disclosure is not, by itself, sufficient to justify maintaining a claim of confidentiality.   In certain circumstances, substantial harm from disclosure may still be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure.

Finally, the treatment of confidentiality request should not be taken as an indication of the manner in which such matters would be dealt with in the future in different circumstances.

Having regard to the considerations set out above, the information filed under a claim of confidentiality in response to the interrogatories is, to the extent set out in the attachment, to be placed on the public record of this proceeding.   In each case, it is considered that the specific direct harm, if any, likely to be caused by disclosure would not outweigh the public interest in disclosure.

Yours sincerely,

'Original signed by P. Godin'

Paul Godin
Director General
Competition, Costing and Tariffs
Telecommunications

Attachments

List of interested parties to PN 2007-4:

ken.engelhart@rci.rogers.com ;  alexander.adeyinka@rci.rogers.com ;  david.watt@rci.rogers.com ;  regulatory@bell.aliant.ca ;  reglementa@telebec.com ;  document.control@sasktel.sk.ca ;  regaffairs@quebecor.com ;  regulatory.affairs@telus.com ;  Regulatory@sjrb.ca ;  bell.regulatory@bell.ca ;  iworkstation@mtsallstream.com ;  dmckeown@viewcom.ca ;  regulatory@lya.com ;  stinsond@comnet.ca ;  abriggs@cogeco.ca ;  christian.tacit@cybersurf.com ;  reglementation@xittel.net ;  y.brunelle@telephonelabaie.qc.ca ;  andre.labrie@mcc.gouv.qc.ca ;  telecom.regulatory@cogeco.com ;

Attachment

Disclosure of Confidential Information

SaskTel is to disclose the information filed with the Commission in confidence, as set out below:

Saskatchewan Telecommunications

SaskTel(CRTC)25May07-402, Attachments 1-7 PN 2007-4
Disclose the information in the section 2.2 for the attachments 2 and 4, and disclose the information in the section 3.2 for the attachments 2, 5 and 6.

SaskTel(MTS Allstream)25May07-503, Attachments 1-10 PN 2007-4
Disclose the information in the section 2.2 for the attachments 3, 6, 7 and 10 and disclose the information in the section 3.2 for the attachments 3, 6 and 7.