ARCHIVED - Letter

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Ottawa, 19 December 2008

 

File No.:  8665-C12-200807943

 

By e-mail

 

To: Distribution List (attached)

 

Re: Provision of Relay Services related to Unresolved issues related to the accessibility of telecommunications and broadcasting services for persons with disabilities, Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2008-8 and Telecom Public Notice CRTC 2008-8 (PN 2008-8) 

 

The Commission notes that parties have raised a number of issues with regard to message relay services (MRS) in the PN 2008-8 proceeding and identified proposals to establish new relay services.  In order to assess these new relay service proposals, it is necessary to gather additional information regarding the message relay services in place today.  Accordingly, those parties that provide message relay services, either directly or through a third party, are to provide responses to the questions in the attachment to this letter no later than 12 January 2009. 

 

Parties may contact Martine Vallee (martine.vallee@crtc.gc.ca) at 819-997-9254 should they have any questions in regard to this process.

 

Yours sincerely,


Original signed by

 

Martine Vallee

Director

Social Policy


Distribution List

 

Bell Canada and Bell Mobility

Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership (including all of its mobile/wireless operations)


MTS Allstream Inc. (including all of its mobile/wireless operations)


Northwestel Inc.


Saskatchewan Telecommunications (including all of its mobile/wireless operations)


TELUS Communications Company (including all of its mobile/wireless operations)

Bragg Communications Incorporated (EastLink)


Cogeco Cable Canada Inc.
Fido Solutions Inc.


Rogers Cable Communications Inc. and Rogers Wireless Partnership


Shaw Telecom Inc.

Vidéotron Ltd.

Virgin Mobile Canada

Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc.

 


   Interrogatories regarding Message Relay Services (MRS)

 

INSERT YOUR COMPANY NAME HERE (CRTC) 19December08-500

 

All ILECs (incumbent local exchange carriers) are required to provide MRS in their operating territories. Telecom Decision 97-8 extended the obligation to provide MRS to CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) and resellers by virtue of underlying LEC (local exchange carrier) obligations.

Answer the following interrogatories on behalf of your company.

1. Does your company provide MRS directly or through a third party provider? If MRS is provided through a third party, identify the name of the party.

 

2. With respect to the MRS that your company provides, provide a list of the types of services options that are included in addition to your basic TTY (teletypewriter unit) to the operator service [e.g.,  VCO (voice carry over), HCO (hearing carry over) etc.].  

 

3. If your company provides MRS to TSPs (telecommunications service providers) via wholesale arrangements, provide a list of the TSPs with which you have such agreements as of 1 December 2008.

4. With respect to the amount ($) that your company collects to provide MRS, provide the following: (Note: In the case that your company does not assess a specific MRS rate to your customers (e.g., if the MRS rate is embedded in the cost of a service), provide either a) the last individual MRS rate charged before the rate was embedded or b) the MRS rate your company imputes.)

5. With respect to the amount your company spends on providing MRS (either directly or through a third party), provide the total annual expenditure for each of the years from 2004 to 2008 broken down between capital costs and operating expenses.    

6. Provide the total conversation minutes for the MRS your company provides for each of the years 2004 to 2008. Provide a breakdown of these minutes as follows i) those conversation minutes processed for your retail customers and ii) those conversation minutes processed for customers of other TSPs (i.e. those that you have MRS wholesale agreements with).

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