ARCHIVED - Telecom Commission Letter Addressed to Philippe Gauvin (Bell Canada)

Ottawa, 28 April 2015

Our reference: 8661-B54-201408930

BY EMAIL

Mr. Philippe Gauvin
Senior Legal Counsel
Bell Canada
Floor 19
160 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario K2P 2C4
bell.regulatory@bell.ca

RE: Follow-up to Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership; Bell Canada; and Télébec, Limited Partnership Proposed rate reductions and customer rebates resulting from the expiry of certain time-limited exogenous factors, Telecom Decision 2015-70

Dear Sir:

In Telecom Decision 2015-70,^{Footnote 1} the Commission approved the approach proposed by Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership; Bell Canada; and Télébec, Limited Partnership (collectively, the Bell companies) to reverse four time-limited exogenous factors and to determine rebates for customers for the periods after the expiry of those exogenous amounts, when rates should have decreased.

In that decision, the Commission also determined that it was appropriate for the Bell companies to add compound interest to the amounts to be credited to customers for the period of time they were overcharged. The Commission directed the Bell companies to recalculate the amount of the rebates with an effective date of 1 June 2015 instead of 1 January 2015, as originally proposed, and to provide the Commission with the details of the recalculation of the revised rebates by the end of March 2015, coincident with the Bell companies’ price cap filings.

The Commission received a submission by the Bell companies, dated 7 April 2015, in which they provided a recalculation of the rebates to include the additional period of time and compound interest.

In separate tariff notice applications, dated 10 April 2015, the Bell companies proposed to reverse the approved rate reductions to reflect increased headroom that would be available in some of the service baskets as of 1 June 2015.

They also proposed to delay implementation of the required rate reductions and rebates for Bell Aliant’s and Bell Canada’s residential services to 1 August 2015, to coincide with other planned rate changes and to avoid customer confusion.

The Bell companies submitted that they would file new tariff pages with the Commission by 1 August 2015 to reflect the required decreases for services in the Residential non-High Cost Serving Area (HCSA) Services basket for Bell Aliant and Bell Canada.

In their recalculation of rebates applicable to Bell Aliant’s and Bell Canada’s residential services, the companies proposed to revise the amount of the rebates to reflect the additional months that must be rebated, and to add compound interest on the required amount up to and including 31 July 2015.

Commission staff considers the recalculated rebates to take effect as of 1 June 2015 to be acceptable. Commission staff will review the updated rebate calculations for Bell Aliant’s and Bell Canada’s residential service baskets after they are submitted in mid-July.

If you have any questions regarding the contents of this letter, please feel free to contact me at michel.murray@crtc.gc.ca, (819) 997-9300.

Sincerely,

Original signed by

Michel Murray
Director, Dispute Resolution and Regulatory Implementation
Telecommunications sector

c.c. : Joseph Cabrera, CRTC, (819) 934-6352, joseph.cabrera@crtc.gc.ca

Date modified:

2015-04-28