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Ottawa, December 20, 2012

Our reference: 8740-S22-201213207

BY EMAIL

Mr. Robert Hersche
Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs
Saskatchewan Telecommunications
2121 Saskatchewan Drive
Regina, Saskatchewan S4P 3Y2
document.control@sasktel.com

Re: SaskTel’s Tariff Notice 275 – Revision to Payphone Compensation Per Call

Dear Mr. Hersche:

The Commission received an application from SaskTel Saskatchewan Telecommunications (SaskTel), dated 19 October 2012 and amended on 22 November 2012, in which the company proposed changes to item 650.24 – Payphone Compensation Per Call of its Competitor Access Tariff, in order to revise the per completed call rate of its Payphone Compensation Per Call service.

Commission staff issued interrogatories to SaskTel on 9 November 2012, and the company filed its responses on 26 November 2012.

Commission staff has reviewed the company's responses and considers that the company did not sufficiently respond to questions 1 a) and 1 c) pertaining to costs for service components obtained from 3rd parties, namely Payphone Network Management and Support Service.

SaskTel is therefore requested to provide comprehensive answers, including rationale and any supporting information, to questions 1 a) and 1 c) of Commission staff’s interrogatories dated 9 November 2012. Failure to provide sufficient information to permit the Commission to complete its assessment of a proposed
cost component may lead to the rejection of this component from the proposed cost study.

In addition, Commission staff requests that SaskTel respond to the supplemental attached interrogatories.

Responses to both information requests noted above are to be filed with the Commission and served on all interested parties by 14 January 2013.

Any other party may file comments with respect to the responses of SaskTel to the information requests by 21 January 2013. SaskTel will have until 28 January 2013 to file its final reply.

Copies of the documents should also be sent to Sylvie Labbé (sylvie.labbe@crtc.gc.ca).

Sincerely yours,

Original signed by

Yvan Davidson
Director, Competitor Services & Costing
Telecommunications

c.c.: Teresa Griffin-Muir, MTS Allstream, iworkstation@mtsallstream.com
Sylvie Labbé, CRTC, 819-953-4945, sylvie.labbe@crtc.gc.ca

Attach (1)

ATTACHMENT

CRTC supplemental interrogatories

1) In its response to question (2) of the interrogatories dated 9 November 2012, SaskTel indicated that, while it agrees that Public Telephone Access Line (PAL) service costs are causal to Public Telephone Service (payphone service), its rates for local payphone service are not designed to fully recover its underlying PAL service costs. Accordingly, SaskTel included PAL service costs in its economic cost study for Payphone Compensation Per Call service (compensation for toll-free call service).

  1. Provide further rationale to explain why SaskTel considers that a portion of public payphones and associated PAL lines are caused by the offering of toll-free call services. Explain the extent to which the company’s decision to introduce, or to continue to offer, a payphone service relates to the business/revenues received from toll-free call services.
  2. Explain whether the Capital Causal to Demand (i.e. payphones and booths) should also be considered to be causal to the toll-free call services. If yes, explain why the company did not identify any such costs as part of its economic study for compensation for toll-free call services. In addition, provide the total net book value of SaskTel payphones and booths, and the present worth of annual costs (PWAC) of this capital, with supporting methodology and assumptions.
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