October 15, 2001

To the Secretary General of the CRTC:

I have been invited by the phone company in Vancouver to write you and express my comments on raising the pricing cap for residential service. Please understand that no consumer in their right mind would want the CRTC to remove any rate restrictions as the company will naturally capitalize unchecked in the name of increased profits for their shareholders. I feel the need to retype the notice they included with my phone bill this month to illustrate why you might not have received much mail from those concerned:

Notice to Customers

The CRTC has initiated a proceeding to review the form of regulation for the telephone companies in Canada (Price Cap Review and Related Issues, Public Notice CRTC 2001-37). Since 1998, the CRTC has used Price Cap regulation to regulate the prices charged for local telephone services by the telephone companies.

In its submission in the proceeding, TELUS has proposed a Service Improvement Plan to extend service to underserved communities and upgrade service in communities with a lower grade of service. For unserved communities, the Service Improvement Plan is a voluntary program for communities with at least 10 permanent residents who are willing to participate in the plan. The cost of the Service Improvement Plan in unserved communities would be paid for in part by the customers obtaining service (Up to $1,000 for the first $26,000 per household) and in part by a subsidy for all other customers (for any amount beyond the customer’s $1,000 per household up to a maximum of $25,000 per household). The cost of the Service Improvement Plan for upgrades in underserved communities would be paid entirely by a subsidy from all other customers.

TELUS has also proposed that it have the flexibility to raise rates for local service (including extended area service) by up to $3 per month per year to a maximum monthly rate of $35 per month for residential customers. Any rate increases in high-cost areas would reduce the subsidy paid by the general body of customers to maintain service in those areas. For business customers, TELUS has proposed that rates be constrained by increases of no more than 10% per year in areas where there is no competition and that this constraint not apply in areas where competition exists.

Even after retyping this mess of baloney it’s suspiciously unclear to me what exactly TELUS is trying to do. It seems that on their way to monopolizing our telephone system they need to increase their profits. My basic individual access line costs $25.76 and they promise not to exceed $35 a month? Their plans seem outrageous to me. All of these rate increases proposed and nothing, nothing will change to my service. I have resisted switching to Sprint et al because BC Tel (now TELUS) have been regulated and I would still have to use some of their services like the basic phone line and phonebooks etc. If you increase or remove the price cap it means increased rates for everyone no matter which service they use.

In the past, I have noticed the phone company capitalize on services they don’t perform at all. For example, it now costs ninety five cents to get a new, changed or incorrectly printed listing—so we pay for what’s not even in the phonebook. I have been so irritated by this that I was about to cancel my home line and just use my cell phone. But no use, TELUS bought out my cell phone company too. The twenty dollar plan I signed up for changed to twenty-five instantly thanks to the "CTRC licensing charge". In a short time that charge went from $4.50 to $7.20 and the TELUS operator is more than happy to credit the CRTC for that charge—"Sorry, but the CRTC insists we collect this money from you!" I can just imagine how they plan to use you as a scapegoat for their major rate increase plans. The other habit TELUS has of charging me for nothing at all is when they send me an email notice on my cell phone asking whether I remembered to pay my bill. (I usually have but it’s stuck in the banking system from the ATM in Vancouver to their bureau.) At the end of the month I need to phone to insist that they remove the charges of the email message which they sent! Their Operator does this but it leaves me wondering about all of the people who are too busy to worry about a few dollars here and there.

Please be careful when deciding TELUS’s case for charging freedom. I’m afraid they can’t honestly be concerned with being fair to me and good for their shareholders at the same time.

Sincerely,

Carol Korm

P.S.—The main reason I got a cell phone instead of a pager was because of the lack of phone booths in Vancouver. It seems it wasn’t in the phone company’s best interest to provide phone booths downtown! Now I hear they’re planning to double the price to fifty cents for a call. It doesn’t seem like good business to raise anything by 100 per cent-but it’s frightening to imagine that they would be allowed to with no opposition when they’re the only game in town.

P.P.S.—Am I the only one who sees Tel U.S. in their name? Would it have been too much to ask for something more Canadian sounding for what might end up being our only telephone company?