ARCHIVED -  Letter

Our Ref.: 8740-V22-201211896

BY E-MAIL

Mr. Dennis Béland
Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs
Telecommunications
Québecor Média inc.
612 St-Jacques Street
15th Floor, South Tower
Montreal, Quebec
H3C 4M8
dennis.beland@quebecor.com

Re: Tariff Notice 40 – Request for information

Dear Mr. Bélanger:

On 20 September 2012, the Commission received an application by Québecor Média inc., on behalf of its subsidiary Vidéotron s.e.n.c. (Vidéotron), under cover of Tariff Notice 40 (TN 40) in which the company proposed an amendment to section 201 of its Carrier Access Tariff to replace a reference to the termination of intra-exchange traffic with a more accurate reference to the termination of intra-local interconnection region traffic (intra LIR).

Under subparagraph 28(1)(a) of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Rules of Practice and Procedure, the Commission may require a party to provide information, particulars or documents that it considers necessary.

Videotron is requested to provide comprehensive answers, including rationale and any supporting information, to the attached questions by 30 November 2012.

Concerned parties may file comments regarding the additional information that will be filed by Videotron no later than 5 December 2012, and Videotron may file its reply no later than
7 December 2012.

Given that the Commission is continuing its analysis, the application will not be processed within 45 days of its receipt. However, the Commission intends to dispose of this application, along with any subsequent revisions, by January 2013.

Yours sincerely,

‘Original signed by M. Murray’

Michel Murray
Director, Regulatory Implementation
Telecommunications

Attach.

c.c.: Denis Henry, Bell Aliant, regulatory@bell.aliant.ca
Philippe Gauvin, Bell Canada, bell.regulatory@bell.ca
David Watt, Rogers Communications Partnership, david.watt@rci.rogers.com
Diane Massie, Analyst, CRTC (819) 997-4576, diane.massie@crtc.gc.ca

Request for information

In this application, staff notes that Videotron proposed that the reference to an imbalance of “over 60%” in the case of the termination of intra-exchange traffic, be replaced with a reference to an imbalance of “over 90%” in the context of an intra-LIR termination. Videotron submitted that this amendment is necessary to reflect the fact that the imbalance tariffs approved by the Commission for LIR-based interconnections contain a greater number of ranges than do exchange-based imbalance tariffs. The company also submitted that in the case of an exchange-based interconnection, the scale that that most closely resembles a one-way trunk is the “over 60%” scale, but that in the case of an LIR-based interconnection, the most imbalanced scale is that of “over 90%”. Furthermore, the company submitted that the tariff charged by Videotron should be equal to its intra-LIR termination service (using the highest imbalance tariff as a proxy for one-way service).

Staff also notes that in the case of traffic delivered on a bill-and-keep trunk, monthly compensation payments must be made to a local exchange carrier (LEC) when the total volume of traffic exchanged between the company and a CLEC over all their local shared-cost trunks is at least 10 million minutes per month and the volume of traffic in the direction of that CLEC network exceeds 80% of the total volume of traffic exchanged between those companies during a minimum of three months. (See section 201: Compensation for Traffic Termination - Percentage of the compensation payments, of the Competitive Local Exchange Carrier Tariff Model, p. 28).

1. By increasing the imbalance tariff of your one-way trunk to the maximum on the granular scale, i.e. by increasing it from 60% to 90%, did Videotron consider that the over-80% monthly compensation element applies, as indicated in the preceding paragraph?

2. If not, please explain why it should not apply.

Date modified:

2012-11-23