ARCHIVED - Letter
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Ottawa, 20 July 2012
BY E-MAIL
Mr. Michel Laurent
Chief Executive Officer
CoopTel
5521 De l'Aéroport Road
Valcourt, Quebec
J0E 2L0
mlaurent@cooptel.coop
Dear Mr. Laurent:
RE: Request for information for the possible revocation of a SILEC licence
This is in response to your letter dated 12 July 2012 requesting clarification from the Commission regarding the process to follow should CoopTel decide to revoke its small incumbent local exchange carrier (small ILEC) licence.
I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the Commission’s regulatory approach to telecommunications companies. The Commission does not manage any generally applied licensing regime for the provision of telecommunications services, with the exception of the basic international telecommunications services licensing regime.
A telephone company’s ILEC status is founded, rather, on its history. As indicated in Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2011-291, until the 1990s, telecommunications services in Canada were provided almost exclusively by telephone companies that operated on a monopoly basis within their respective serving territories, each company regulated services in a given area within a province.
Having operated as the sole providers of telecommunications services in their respective serving territories, those incumbent telephone companies, both large regional companies and small independent companies, have an obligation to serve in their respective serving territories.
The obligation of telecommunications companies, and more generally speaking, utilities, to serve in their respective serving territoriesis based on jurisprudence and the decisions of regulatory agencies like the Commission.
Yours sincerely,
‘Original signed by C. Seidl’
Chris Seidl
Executive Director
Telecommunications
c.c.: J.P. Blais, Chairperson, CRTC, jean-pierre.blais@crtc.gc.ca
L. Katz, Vice-chairperson, Telecommunications, CRTC, len.katz@crtc.gc.ca
S. Lamarre, Regional Commissioner, Quebec, CRTC, suzanne.lamarre@crtc.gc.ca
L’Hon. C. Paradis, Minister of Industry, paradc2@parl.gc.ca
Hon. M. Bernier, Ministre d’état (petite entreprise et tourisme), bernim1a@parl.gc.ca
R. Genest, M.P., Shefford, Rejean.Genest@parl.gc.ca
S. Desy, ACTQ, sdesy@actq.qc.ca
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