News release

March 24^th, 2005

CRTC Decision on Quality of Service for Retail
Telephone Customers

OTTAWA-GATINEAU — The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced a decision on retail telephone quality of service (Q of S) and related matters. This decision finalizes the retail Q of S regime for telephone companies and explains how and when telephone subscribers will be credited on their telephone bills when their telephone companies provide sub-standard service on any of 13 retail Q of S indicators.

The Commission introduced quality of service indicators to ensure that the telephone companies maintain quality service to customers as part of an evolution to a less regulated environment which set rates under a price cap regime. The Commission introduced the Q of S indicators to ensure that service would not suffer in favour of increased profit margins.

In the second price cap decision, the Commission found that, for the most part, Canada’s incumbent local exchange carriers (the large telephone companies) showed uninterrupted, sub-standard performance from 1998 to 2000 relative to the Commission’s performance standards for Q of S indicators. The Commission further indicated that it was not convinced that competitive pressure was sufficient to ensure that the telephone companies would meet the approved Q of S standards.

The 13 retail Q of S indicators mandated by the Commission for retail customers include items commonly required to ensure access to telephone service in both urban and rural areas, such as repair appointments met, access to business office, out-of-service trouble reports cleared within 24 hours, etc.

Subscribers of the large telephone companies that failed to meet the Q of S requirements during the period from 2002 to 2004 will receive a credit on their bill before the end of 2005. Applications from the large telephone companies to be exempted from issuing credits in extraordinary circumstances, such as labour disruptions, will be considered by the Commission on a case-by-case basis.

Going forward, telephone subscribers will receive an annual credit on their telephone bill when their telephone company’s annual average result for a Q of S indicator is below the Commission standard.

Credits are graduated according to the degree of below standard performance to a maximum of 5% of local service revenues. Eligible telephone subscribers will generally be those customers of record 30 days prior to the distribution of the credit. Complete information on the calculation of the customer credit is included in the decision itself.

The decision also sets out telephone company audit and reporting requirements for Q of S results.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is an independent public authority that regulates and supervises broadcasting and telecommunications in Canada.

Reference document: Telecom Decision CRTC 2005-17 [.htm] [.pdf]

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Media Relations:
   MediaRelations@crtc.gc.ca, Tel: (819) 997-9403, Fax: (819) 997-4245

General Inquiries:
   Tel: (819) 997-0313, TDD: (819) 994-0423, Fax: (819) 994-0218
   Toll-free # 1-877-249-CRTC (2782), eMail: info@crtc.gc.ca
   TDD - Toll-free # 1-877-909-2782

Copies of today’s documents are available through our Internet site (http://www.crtc.gc.ca) or by contacting the public examination room of any CRTC office. These documents are available in alternative format upon request.

Date Modified: 2005-03-24

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