Dear CRTC,

I object to the  rate hikes that would result from the Service Improvement Plan proposed by Telus, details of which were sent to us in their last billing.  Telus has asked permission to raise our basic telephone rate by $3 per month per year to a maximum monthly rate of $35 per month.  However, we have already borne steep rate hikes for our BC Tel/Telus telephone service in the last few years.  Telus proposes to supply service to communities with a minimum of 10 permanent residents.  This would no doubt be appreciated by the community in question, but I do not see why I and other Telus customers should subsidize each household's installation of telephone service to the tune of 26 thousand dollars per new household. Quite apart from any other consideration, why should present Telus users financially subsidize a move which will only add to the value of the new users home and property, especially when the new user himself is only paying $1000.  Telus is a business and it is hard to understand why present users should have to pay, upfront, the cost of their expansion. If their expansion is for humanitarian reasons alone, then it should be borne by the government and recouped by taxation which is income-related.  This cost to all existing users of $26000 per new user is a disgrace and quite possibly exceeds the income of many present Telus users.  In times of restraint such as we live in, where even governments say they cannot afford to pay their employees increases in wages, it is totally inappropriate for government bodies such as the CRTC to give permission for huge, across the board, year by year rate increases by corporations under their jurisdiction.  Many Canadian residents, such as myself, are on fixed or low incomes and would find such rate increases a hardship.  Whereas in the past, people under constrained circumstances have been able to cut back on long-distance phone use in order to stay within their budget, if this trend continues, they will no longer be able be able to afford even basic, local telephone service.

I urge you not to agree to the proposed Service Improvement plan rate hikes and to maintain a stringent price cap on what has always been a predictably reliable service,

Yours sincerely,

Margaret Hubble,

1101 30th Ave.

Vernon, B.C.

V1T1Z6

phone:  250-542-2712