ARCHIVED - Letter

Ottawa, 10 December 2009

File No.: 8740-B2-200904989
           8740-B54-200904971

By Email

Distribution

Re: Bell Aliant Tariff Notice 242 and Bell Canada Tariff Notice 7181 – Request for Disclosure and Further Responses

Dear Madams and Sirs:

This letter addresses requests for disclosure of information for which confidentiality was claimed by Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership (Bell Aliant) and Bell Canada (collectively, the Bell companies), and for further responses to interrogatories filed by the Bell companies, in the proceedings initiated by the above tariff notices.

Requests for disclosure and for further responses, dated 7 December 2009, were filed by TekSavvy Solutions Inc., the Coalition of Internet Service Providers Inc., and Acanac Inc. and Managed Network Systems Inc. Similar requests for disclosure and for further responses, dated 8 December 2009, were filed by MTS Allstream Inc. and the Canadian Association of Internet Providers on behalf of Accelerated Connections Inc., AOL Canada, Cybersurf, EGATE Networks, Execulink Telecom, Telnet Communications and Yak Communications (Canada) Corp.

On 9 December 2009, the Bell companies filed their responses to the above requests.

Requests 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; and

finally, the treatment of confidentiality requests 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 all of the above considerations, the information filed under a claim of confidentiality in response to the Companies(CRTC)2Dec09-1 TN 242 & 7181 is to be placed on the public record of this proceeding. Commission staff considers that the specific direct harm, if any, likely to be caused by disclosure would not outweigh the public interest in disclosure.

Requests for Further Responses

With regard to requests for further responses, the requirements of subsection 18(2) of the Rules apply. The merits of arguments both for and against the filing of further responses have been taken into account, as well as the general principles enunciated by the Commission in past proceedings which include the following considerations:

the major consideration is the relevance of the information requested to the matter at issue;

the availability of the information requested is also a factor, which is balanced against the relevance of the information; if the provision of the information sought would require an effort disproportionate to the probative value of the information itself, further responses will not be required; and

another factor considered is the extent to which an interrogatory answer is responsive to the interrogatory as it was originally asked; generally, parties are not required to provide further information to a party that did not ask the original interrogatory.

Having regard to all of the above considerations, Commission staff considers that the responses and supplemental information dated 9 December 2009 provided by the Bell companies to the interrogatories that were the subject of requests for further responses, to be sufficient.

Process

The above material is to be filed with the Commission and served on all interested parties, by 11 December 2009.

The previously established date for parties’ submissions of comments or supplementary comments of 9 December 2009 is revised to 16 December 2009. The date for submission of the Bell companies’ reply comments is revised to 18 December 2009.

Submissions must be received, not merely sent by the relevant date.

Yours sincerely,

Original Signed By:

Yvan Davidson
Senior Manager
Competition, Costing & Tariffs

c.c.: Richard Pagé, CRTC 819-997-4298, richard.page@crtc.gc.ca
Daphne Fry, CRTC 819-953-5373, daphne.fry@crtc.gc.ca

Distribution List

Bell Aliant, regulatory@bell.aliant.ca
Bell Canada, bell.regulatory@bell.ca
Canadian Association of Internet Providers, tom.copeland@caip.ca
Union des consommateurs, union@consommateur.qc.ca
The Coalition of Internet Service, regulatory@cfai-cisp.ca
Vaxination Informatique, jfmezei@vaxination.ca
EGATE Networks Inc., info@egate.net
Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc., regulatory@primustel.ca
Ontario Telecommunications Association, jonathan.holmes@ota.on.ca
Execulink Telecom, kstevens@execulink.com
Distributel Communications Limited, regulatory@distributel.ca
Aventures en Excellence Inc (AEI Internet), info@aei.net
MTS Allstream Inc., iworkstation@mtsallstream.com
Cybersurf Corp., marcel.mercia@cybersurf.com
Managed Network Systems, Inc., clayton@MNSi.Net
Yak Communications, lisagoetz@globalive.com
TekSavvy Solutions Inc., info@teksavvy.com
Christian Tacit, ctacit@tacitlaw.com
Acanac Inc., paul@acanac.ca
Electronic Box Inc., regulatory@electronicbox.net
Accelerated Connections, mgarbe@dsl4u.ca
Telnet Communications, regulatory@telnetcommunications.com
AOL Canada Inc., regulatoryca@aol.com

Date modified:

2009-12-10