ARCHIVED - Telecom Commission Letter Addressed to Distribution

Ottawa, 14 July 2017

Our reference: 8640-B2-201606534, 8640-T66-201608606

BY EMAIL AND MAIL

Distribution

Re: Bell Canada and TELUS Communications Company – Applications for forbearance from the regulation of pay telephone access line service – Request for information

Dear Madam, Sir:

The Commission received a Part 1 application from Bell Canada, dated 23 June 2016, requesting that the Commission refrain from exercising its powers and performing its duties under sections 24, 25, 27, 29, and 31 of the Telecommunications Act (the Act) in relation to the provision of pay telephone access line (PAL) service by Bell Canada (including the former Bell Aliant Regional Communications, Limited Partnership, or Bell Aliant) and Télébec, Limited Partnership, in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada (collectively, the Bell Companies).

The Commission also received a Part 1 application, dated 15 August 2016, from TELUS Communications Company (TCC), requesting that the Commission refrain from exercising its powers and performing its duties under sections 24, 25, 27, 29, and 31 of the Act in relation to the provision of PAL service by TCC. In addition, TCC requested that the Commission regulate competitive pay telephone service providers (CPTSPs) under section 24.1 of the Act to require them to comply with registration and consumer safeguard provisions that are currently included in TCC’s tariff.

Pursuant to paragraph 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 to enable the Commission to reach a full and satisfactory understanding of the subject matter of the proceeding.

All the parties are requested to provide comprehensive answers, including any supporting information, to the attached questions with respect to the above-noted forbearance applications.

Responses to the attached requests for information are to be filed with the Commission, serving a copy on all those listed in the distribution list, by 4 August 2017.

Any party to these proceedings (i.e., Bell Canada, TCC, PIAC or the CPTSPs) may file interventions on the responses to the requests for information with the Commission, serving a copy on all those listed in the distribution list, by 11 August 2017.

As set out in section 39 of the Act and in Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin CRTC 2010-961, Procedures for filing confidential information and requesting its disclosure in Commission proceedings, persons may designate certain information as confidential.  A person designating information as confidential must provide a detailed explanation on why the designated information is confidential and why its disclosure would not be in the public interest, including why the specific direct harm that would be likely to result from the disclosure would outweigh the public interest in disclosure. Furthermore, a person designating information as confidential must either file an abridged version of the document omitting only the information designated as confidential or provide reasons why an abridged version cannot be filed.

Where a document is to be filed or served by a specific date, the document must be actually received, not merely sent, by that date.

Yours sincerely,

Original signed by

Philippe Kent
Director, Competition and Emergency Services Policy
Telecommunications Sector

c.c.:  Mohsin Tahirkheli, CRTC, (819) 639-4387, mohsin.tahirkheli@crtc.gc.ca
Jeremy Lendvay, CRTC, (819) 819-997-4946, jeremy.lendvay@crtc.gc.ca;

Distribution List

Bell Canada, Phillippe Gauvin, bell.regulatory@bell.ca
Telus Communications Company, Stephen Schmidt, regulatory.affairs@telus.com
PIAC, Geoff White, gwhite@piac.ca
John Lawford, jlawford@piac.ca
All registered CPTSPs

Questions for all parties

1. Discuss whether the determinations set out in TRP 2017-11,^Footnote1 particularly the imposition of obligations directly on resellers such as CPTSPs, at paragraphs 16 (consumer safeguard obligations) and 37 (obligation to register with the Commission) as a condition of offering and providing telecommunication services pursuant to section 24.1 of the Telecommunications Act, impact or modify the submissions your organization made in this proceeding. If so, how?
2. Discuss whether it would be appropriate to define the relevant geographic market for PAL service as the ILEC exchange, and whether using forborne vs non-forborne retail exchanges would be an appropriate proxy for where competitive alternatives for PAL are likely to exist.

Questions for Bell Canada and TCC

1. Our records indicate that your company has not filed an application to remove the consumer safeguard obligations from your PAL tariff, pursuant to TRP 2017-11. Please indicate whether all your PAL services clients have registered with the Commission. If not, please provide the names of those that haven’t.
2. According to information contained in the Results of the Fact-Finding Process on the Role of Payphones in the Canadian Communications System^Footnote2 , as of February 2015, payphone service providers had yet to remove the last payphone in any community.

Has your company removed the last payphone in any communities? If so, identify which communities and indicate whether each community in question is located in an exchange that has been subject to local forbearance.

Question for the CPTSPs

Bell Canada stated in its intervention to the responses of the November 2, 2016 Request for information, that if its application were to be approved, Bell Canada would offer CPTSPs the ability to purchase the CPTSP toll-free report on a commercial basis. These reports, according to Bell Canada, would include business lines purchased for CPTSP purposes.

1. What is your opinion on this response from Bell Canada?

Date modified:

2017-07-14