ARCHIVED - Telecom Commission Letter Addressed to Mr. Bill Abbott (Bell Canada)

We are writing in response to your letters dated 17 February 2015 and 24 February 2015 that requested an additional two week extension (3 March 2015) for filing with the Commission your reply comments for Telecom Decision CRTC 2014-527 – Show Cause of Bell Canada and Bell Mobility (Bell).

Commission staff grants Bell’s request above to extend the filing date for this information by two weeks to 3 March 2015.

I would also like to take this opportunity to request clarification on the submission by Bell in furtherance to the Show Cause proceeding on the mobility accessibility initiatives approved in Telecom Decision CRTC 2014-527. Please provide responses to the following by no later than 6 March 2015.

1. Bell submits that changes in costs to the approved initiatives would represent an increase from $4.9M to an estimated $5.1M. Commission staff notes that each of the three approved initiatives Bell highlighted represents an estimated $0.1M increase.
1. Please provide an updated cost estimate, rounded to $0.01M, that is attributed to the increases in costs of each of the three existing initiatives identified in Bell’s submission as well as the total estimated amount of deferral account funds.
2. Commission staff notes that in your 31 March 2014 cost submission, your unit projections for the various technology initiatives decreased near the end of the five year period. Please indicate why Bell has projected a steady level of demand for the technology initiatives in its show cause submission.
3. Please confirm, for both the Mobility Accessibility App and the Tecla Access Solution, that Bell’s estimated costs will be sufficient to cover the respective unit cost increases based the number of units that Bell has projected over the five year period in attachment 1 of its submission.
4. Please provide additional details on the increase in costs for lifecycle management, currently estimated to be $0.1M. In particular, please indicate whether this amount is solely attributed to the salary costs of a dedicated product manager or if other factors have contributed to this increase.
2. Bell submits that the amount of unallocated deferral account funds, after (i) updates in costs to the approved initiatives and (ii) implementation of the Commission’s proposed initiatives (initiatives 1, 2, and 5), will be reduced to a total of $1.2M (a decrease from $1.6M as stated in Telecom Decision 2014-527).
1. Please provide a revised estimated total for the amount of unallocated deferral account funds, rounded to $0.01M that will be outstanding.
2. Based on the updated total, please provide additional information for Bell’s proposed new initiatives with the following.

• The amount attributed to each proposed alternative initiative – Technology, Product Support and Direct Marketing.
• A cost breakdown of each initiative that, at a minimum, provides a breakdown of labour/salary and activity costs.

Yours sincerely,
ORIGINAL SIGNED BY /

Nanao Kachi
Director, Social & Consumer Policy
Consumer Affairs and Strategic Policy
Nanao.Kachi@crtc.gc.ca

cc. mary-louise.hayward@crtc.gc.ca; max.liu@crtc.gc.ca

Dist List:
Bell bill.abbott@bell.ca; Canadian Association of the Deaf jroots@cad.ca; Ontario College of Art and Design, Treviranus, jtreviranus@faculty.ocad.ca; ARCH archlib@lao.on.ca; petricoi@lao.on.ca; Council of Canadians with Disabilities, laurie@ccdonline.ca; Council of Canadians with Disabilities, ccd@ccdonline.ca; Independent Living Canada, nationaldirector@ilc-vac.ca; Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), Christine.robbins@cnib.ca; Canadian Council of the Blind, mpotvin@ccbnational.net; Ottawa Deaf Centre, newfiedjh@yahoo.com; Ontario Association of the Deaf, dean@deafontario.ca; The Canadian Hearing Society, ckenopic@chs.ca; Canadian Association for Community Living, mbach@cacl.ca; Centre québécois de la déficience auditive, cqda@videotron.ca; Public Interest Law Centre, mybow@legalaid.mb.ca; Disability and Information Technologies (Dis-IT), ine@ccdonline.ca; d_stienstra@umanitoba.ca; Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians/L'Alliance pour l'égalité des aveugles canadiens, Farah.mughal@rci.rogers.com; Neil Squire Society, garyb@neilsquire.ca; Chris Stark, stark.chris@rogers.com; cstark@samobile.net; jeff.in.kanata@gmail.com; Clayton Zekelman, clayton@MNSi.Net; Beverley Milligan, Media Access Canada, bmilligan@mediac.ca; Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec, direction@cophan.org; Diane Bergeron, diane.bergeron@cnib.ca; Lui Greco, lui.greco@cnib.ca

Date modified:

2015-02-27