ARCHIVED - Letter
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Ottawa, 7 April 2009
File No.: 8740-B2-200904715
8740-B54-200904708
By E-mail
Mr. David Palmer
Director – Regulatory Affairs
Bell Canada
Floor 19 – 160 Elgin St .
Ottawa, Ont.
K2P 2C3
Bell.regulatory@bell.ca
RE: Bell Canada Tariff Notice 7180 and Bell Aliant Tariff Notice 241 – Voice dialing
On 9 March 2009, the Commission received applications by Bell Canada and Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership (the Bell companies), under cover of Tariff Notices (TN) 7180 and 241, respectively, in which the companies proposed modifications to their respective General Tariff – Item 2165, Calling Features - Voice dialing, in order to withdraw the feature for business customers.
In the cover letter supporting the applications, the Bell companies stated the following:
“The Companies are planning to modify Voice Dialing service for residential customers, with an expected effective date of 15 June 2009, as proposed in the Companies' submissions leading to Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-1, Use of deferral account funds to improve access to telecommuni ca tions services for persons with disabilities and to expand broadband services to rural and remote communities. It is the Companies' intention to limit availability of the modified Voice Dialing service to residence customers only, as it would be unduly expensive and time-consuming to develop back-office procedures to also offer the service to business customers. As well, the Companies do not foresee sufficient potential in the business market to make Voice Dialing service economi ca lly viable in this market segment.”
In their letter the Bell companies also indicated that they planned to file a proposal for the redesigned Voice Activated Dialing (VAD) service in April 2009.
Commission staff notes that in Use of deferral account funds to improve access to telecommuni ca tions services for persons with disabilities and to expand broadband services to rural and remote communities , Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-1, 17 January 2008, (Telecom Decision 2008-1), the Commission approved use of certain funds that had accumulated in Bell Canada's deferral account to redesign the underlying application for its VAD service.
Further to the Commission's letter dated 25 March 2009, given the approval of the use of funds in the deferral account for the redesign of VAD services, the Bell companies are to provide full justification in their April submissions for their position that the VAD service not be offered in the business market.
In addition, the Bell companies are to serve a copy of their April submissions on the parties that were involved in the accessibility-related matters in the deferral account proceeding who have been copied with this letter.
The Commission intends to dispose of the tariff notices subsequent to the Bell companies' April 2009 filing.
Yours sincerely,
‘Original signed by S. Bédard'
Suzanne Bédard
Senior Manager, Tariffs
Telecommunications
cc: Joanne Baldassi, CRTC, (819) 997-4576, joanne.baldassi@crtc.gc.ca
Provinicial Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, jodi.birley@gov.bc.ca
AVLIC bmykle@telus.net
Canadian Association of the Deaf/Association des Sourds du Canada, dotsofthings@hotmail.com, deafmb@mts.net, chodgins@cad.ca, jroots@cad.ca
Belleville Association of the Deaf, jeremy.wells@sympatico.ca, aaron.walsh@sympatico.ca
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca
ARCH Disability Law Centre, kerznel@lao.on.ca
Council of Canadians with Disabilities, laurie@ccdonline.ca
Council of Canadians with Disabilities / Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres, kier@cailc.ca
Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), cathy.moore@cnib.ca
Canadian Council of the Blind, mpotvin@ccbnational.net
Ottawa Deaf Centre, newfiedjh@yahoo.com
Ontario Association of the Deaf, jj@deafontario.ca
The Canadian Hearing Society, gmalkowski@chs.ca
Canadian Association for Community Living, mbach@cacl.ca
Centre québécois de la déficience auditive, cqda@videotron.ca
Public Interest Law Centre, mybow@legalaid.mb.ca
Disability and Information Technologies (Dis-IT), ine@ccdonline.ca; d_stienstra@umanitoba.ca
Canadian Hard of Hearing Association/L'Association des malentendant canadiens, kurt@chha.on.ca
Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians/L'Alliance pour l'égalité des aveugles canadiens, marcia.cummings@rci.rogers.com
Neil Squire Society, garyb@neilsquire.ca
Chris Stark, stark.chris@rogers.com
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