ARCHIVED - Letter

Ottawa, 29 April 2011

Our Reference: 8661-C12-201102350, 8638-C12-201016882

BY E-MAIL

To Distribution List

Re: Request for additional cost information – Telecom Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-77, Review of billing practices for wholesale residential high-speed access services (NoC 2011-77), as amended by NoC 2011-77-1 and NoC 2011-77-2, and Business Speed Matching proceeding

Dear Madam/Sir,

Pursuant to the process specified in paragraph 22 of NoC 2011-77-2, Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership in Ontario and Quebec and Bell Canada (collectively the Bell companies), MTS Allstream Inc. (MTS Allstream), Saskatchewan Telecommunications (SaskTel), TELUS Communications Company (Telus), Cogeco Cable Inc. (Cogeco), Quebecor Media Inc., on behalf of its affiliate Videotron Ltd. (QMI), Rogers Communications Inc. (Rogers), and Shaw Communications Inc. (Shaw) are requested to provide responses to the attached interrogatories.

Pursuant to the process set out in paragraph 23 of NoC 2011-77-1, parties are to file their responses with the Commission, serving copies on all other parties, by 24 May 2011. These responses are to be received, and not merely sent, by this date.

Commission staff notes that these interrogatories and their responses will be put on the record of both the NoC 2011-77 proceeding (file 8661-C12-201102350) and the Business Speed Matching proceeding (file 8638-C12-201016882).

Copies of the documents should also be sent to Tom Vilmansen (tom.vilmansen@crtc.gc.ca), richard.page@crtc.gc.ca and mohammed.omar@crtc.ca.

Yours sincerely,

Original signed by

Lynne Fancy
Director General
Competition, Costing and Tariffs
Telecommunications

cc: Yvan Davidson, yvan.davidson@crtc.gc.ca; Richard Pagé, richard.page@crtc.gc.ca;
Tom Vilmansen, tom.vilmansen@crtc.gc.ca; Mohammed Omar, mohammed.omar@crtc.gc.ca

ATTACHMENT

Interrogatories for the Bell companies

201. In response to The Companies(CRTC)05Apr11-1, the Bell companies indicated that copper-based trouble tickets causal to GAS-FTTN or HSA-FTTN are only a subset of all of the trouble tickets causal to GAS-FTTN and HSA-FTTN.

Provide the percentage of the trouble tickets causal to GAS-FTTN and HSA-FTTN that are copper-based trouble tickets.

202. In response to The Companies(CRTC)05Apr11-2, the Bell companies indicated that the IPTV service also makes use of the FTTN network.

For each of the years 2010 and 2015, provide an estimate of the year-end number of IPTV end-users.

203. Refer to the Bell companies’ responses to The Companies(CRTC)04Feb11-116 & 201 and The Companies(CRTC)05-Apr11-4 TRP 2010-632, where they provided  information regarding FTTN service charge costs. 

In order to clarify this cost information, provide information as identified in the table on the following page.

Bell Companies' FTTN GAS Service charge cost inputs

Interrogatories for MTS Allstream

201. Refer to Attachment 1 of MTS Allstream(CRTC)5Apr11-8 VDAS. 

Explain whether the ‘Vendor Support’ maintenance costs related to Supplier Annual Support, as provided under column A of Attachment 1, are exactly the same as specified in the contract, or whether they were derived from other information provided in the contract.  If they were derived from other information provided in the contract, provide the source data and the calculations used to derive the information shown in column A of Attachment 1, with supporting rationale.

202. Refer to the company’s responses in MTS Allstream(CRTC)5Apr11-5 VDAS and MTS Allstream(CRTC)4Feb11-111 VDAS.

a. Provide a brief description and indicate the purpose of the following inward ‘IPMP – Order Fulfillment’ movement activities: (i) creating the VLAN and (ii) configuring the VLAN.
b. Explain with supporting rationale whether each of the major activities for ‘Outward Movement’ is assumed to be the same as those for the ‘Inward Movement’.  Further explain why the network needs to be re-configured each time there is an outward movement.
c. Explain and provide a detailed description and purpose of each of the activities ‘manage the inventory of ports and the logical arrangement of VLAN and ports, the port profiles and the router inventory’ for both the inward and outward movement for ‘Facilities Management – Issue Order’, as provided in response to MTS Allstream(CRTC)4Feb11-111 VDAS.  Further explain why the logical arrangement of the VLAN and ports is impacted by an outward movement.

Interrogatory for Sasktel

201. In its response to Sasktel(CRTC)6April11-1 TN 246A, Sasktel indicated that certain access costs were calculated and applied inappropriately and that the impact of these corrections led to a significant change to the monthly equivalent costs of its initial 5 year cost study.

Using the format of Tables 1 to 28 of its cost study, provide a revised cost study for a study period of 5 years.  Sasktel should also provide a revised response to any interrogatory in this proceeding that is affected by the above-noted revisions.

Interrogatories for Telus

201. Further to the responses to Telus(CRTC)5Aprisl11-5, Telus(CRTC)15Oct10-103 and  Telus(CNOC)4Feb11-1 and using a similar format to that used in the Attachment  to the response to The Companies(CRTC)04Feb11-105,

a. provide a breakdown of the BRAS Aggregation material costs into its major resource components, specifying the equipment type, the associated maximum capacity and average working fill and vintage of the data.

b. provide a breakdown of the ATM PVC/Gigabit Ethernet equipment material costs into its major resource components, specifying the equipment type, the associated maximum capacity, average working fill and vintage of the data.

c. provide a breakdown of the DSLAM equipment material costs into its major resource components, specifying the equipment type, the associated maximum capacity, average working fill and vintage of the data.

202. Refer to the response to interrogatory Telus(CRTC)5April-6.

a. Comment on the appropriateness of applying retrospective CIFs as suggested in the interrogatory.

b. If the company disagrees with the proposed retrospective CIFs, provide proposed revised retrospective CIFs for each of the DSLAM and ATM PVC/Gigabit Ethernet equipment with supporting assumptions and rationale.  The response should provide a comparison of the company’s proposed revised retrospective CIFs with the changes in costs per unit of capacity experienced over the last 5 years for each of the DSLAM and ATM PVC/Gigabit Ethernet.  If the company proposes revised retrospective CIFs, it should also provide a revised cost study (with a 3 year study period) using the formats of tables 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the cost study.

203. Comment on a pricing approach whereby the contract term pricing is eliminated and wholesale customers are all subject to a single price for the service.  Further provide proposed revised matching speed rates under such a single price approach.

Interrogatory for Cogeco

201. Refer to the response to Cogeco(CRTC)5Apr11-1002 part b).

a. Using the revised format of Tables 3.1 to 3.5 as outlined in Cogeco(CRTC)20Apr11-1, provide proposed revised costs and rates per end-user for the following change in assumptions: the 2010 capital unit costs used to derive the capital cash flows for the in-service demand base at the start of the study period are restated to 2011 vintage by applying a retrospective productivity improvement factor (PIF) of 15% for traffic driven components (e.g. CMTS, Transport and Router).

b. If the company disagrees with the proposed retrospective PIF identified in part a) above, provide a proposed revised retrospective PIF for the period 2010 to 2011, with supporting assumptions and rationale.  The response should provide a comparison of the company’s proposed revised retrospective PIF with the changes in unit costs experienced over the 2006 to 2010 period as identified in the above noted interrogatory response.

Interrogatory for QMI 

201. Refer to the response to QMI(CRTC)5Apr11-1002 part b).

a. Using the format of Tables 1 to 8 in the company’s Economic Evaluation revised
14 December 2010, provide proposed revised costs and rates per end-user for the following change in assumptions: the 2010 capital unit costs used to derive the capital cash flows for the in-service demand base at the start of the study period are restated to 2011 vintage by applying a retrospective productivity improvement factor (PIF) of 15% for traffic driven components (e.g. CMTS, Transport and Router).

b. If the company disagrees with the proposed retrospective PIF identified in part a) above, provide a proposed revised retrospective PIF for the period 2010 to 2011, with supporting assumptions and rationale.  The response should provide a comparison of the company’s proposed revised retrospective PIF with the changes in unit costs experienced over the 2006 to 2010 period as identified in the above noted interrogatory response.

Interrogatories for Rogers 

201. Refer to the response to Rogers(CRTC)5Apr11-1002 part b).

a. Using the format of Tables 1 to 18 in the company’s revised 11 March 2011 Economic Evaluation, provide proposed revised costs and rates per end-user for the following change in assumptions: the 2010 capital unit costs used to derive the capital cash flows for the in-service demand base at the start of the study period are restated to 2011 vintage by applying a retrospective productivity improvement factor (PIF) of 15% for traffic driven components (e.g. CMTS, Transport and Router).

b. If the company disagrees with the proposed retrospective PIF identified in part a) above, provide a proposed revised retrospective PIF for the period 2010 to 2011, with supporting assumptions and rationale.  The response should provide a comparison of the company’s proposed revised retrospective PIF with the changes in unit costs experienced over the 2006 to 2010 period as identified in the above noted interrogatory response.

202. Using the format of Tables 1 to 18 in the company’s revised 11 March 2011 Economic Evaluation, provide revised proposed costs and rates for each of the following change in assumptions:  

a. Where the average daily traffic volume - used to calculate the number of traffic-sensitive capital units such as the number of segments and CMTS (identified in response to Rogers(CRTC)15Sept10-105) - is increased by 10%

b. Where the average daily traffic volume is revised to equal the average of the daily volumes associated with observations (based on the data used to produce Attachment 2 of the response to Rogers(CRTC)5April11-1003) that have a corresponding % Throughput Utilization that exceed the % throughput utilization threshold (where the throughput speed begins to deteriorate).  Provide this revised average daily volume and the number of observations used.  Further comment on the applicability of deriving the average daily traffic volume in this way in comparison to the straight line regression technique that the company used.  The response should identify the source, timing and geographical coverage of the sample data, and explain why this is viewed as representative of the total company.

Interrogatory for Shaw

201. Refer to the response to Shaw(CRTC)5Apr11-1002 part b).

a. Using the format of Tables 1 to 15 in the company’s 10 December 2010 Economic Evaluation report, provide proposed revised costs and rates per end-user for the following change in assumptions: the 2010 capital unit costs used to derive the capital cash flows for the in-service demand base at the start of the study period are restated to 2011 vintage by applying a retrospective productivity improvement factor (PIF) of 15% for traffic driven components (e.g. CMTS, Transport and Router).

b. If the company disagrees with the proposed retrospective PIF identified in part a) above, provide a proposed revised retrospective PIF for the period 2010 to 2011, with supporting assumptions and rationale.  The response should provide a comparison of the company’s proposed revised retrospective PIF with the changes in unit costs experienced over the 2006 to 2010 period as identified in the above noted interrogatory response.

Date modified:

2011-04-29