Secretary General

CRTC

Ottawa, Ontario K1A ON2

I am dismayed again by yet another proposed increase by our monopoly phone service provider, Telus this time, BC Tel in the recent past. I have a copy of a local phone bill for 1994 (8 years ago)with a base cost for one residential access line of $11.85 per month. In 1999 my single access line was billed at $23.71 per month an increase of 100 % over 6 years. Presently my single access line is billed at $28.29 an increase of 19.3 % in the last 2 years since 1999. Now Telus is asking to be able to bill us a further $3 per month per year to a maximum(lasting how long?) of $35 per month per residential customer. This means further increases of 10.6 % per year for the next 2 years & 2.5% for the 3rd year on top of recent past increases to reach their maximum(for the time being?) billing amount.This means an increase in the 8 years since 1994 to 2001of 138 % for the same phone basic service which is all I require.

Most Canadians, & certainly my & my family's,  income has not increased by remotely any where near such exorbitant amounts. Basic phone service is now considered a basic necessity of life for almost every Canadian, rich or poor. Senior citizens, & anyone else on fixed incomes, cannot afford the kind of excessive monthly living expense increases we have seen over the past 8 years.When basic phone service is provided by a monopoly - with no control other than the CRTC I think it is shameful that they want the bulk of average & low income Canadian families to pay for cost increases to services which have been provided up to now at our past & present monthly phone bill costs.I strongly suspect we are being really asked to foot the bill for corporate profit increases & extra services being offered which most of us can't afford. We don't have any choice over the extra corporate costs involved in implementing those extra services. Some years ago we were told that as BC Tel had lost the monopoly on long distance service we all would have to pay more to cover that supposed loss in income which was used to subsidize residential rates. We have been paying that arbitrary increase for some time now.  If people want extra services let them pay for them at full rate as we do for our basic residential service.

Speaking for my own lower income family (& probably the majority of Canadians) who increasingly struggles with a decreasing standard of living over the last number of years, I ask you to seriously use the power invested in you by Canadians to considerably lower the monthly basic phone line service cost to Canadians & let the costs rise, when fully justified, for the peripheral services that are not affordable or necessary for the average Canadian. Let Telus & other phone companies make their profits on their extra services & not on the basic necessity for the majority of Canadian for basic residential phone service.

Thank you on behalf of my family for your prompt attention to this urgent matter