Dear CRTC members:

Re: CRTC 2001-37 - Price Cap review and Related Issues

On behalf of Blue Cat Design Inc., I object to Bell's proposal for

increasing rural basic service charges for two reasons:

1) Bell does not provide our rural business with the most basic

services that local urban businesses take for granted, ie. high speed

internet connect, DSL, ISDN.

2) that quality of service is not sufficiently addressed, nor is the

disparity of service between urban and rural locations.

The backbone of Bell's communication network runs through Port Hope,

Ontario, along the Highway 401 corridor, just 7KM south of the rural

business location of Blue Cat Design. Yet, because we have rural

phone service:

- the 'message waiting' light on our phones don't work,

- the modem connection speeds are half of our urban friends,

- DSL is not available,

- ISDN is not available,

- Sympatico's "High Speed" internet service is not available,

Our experience is typical of Bell's rural customers.

The lack of high speed internet access, DSL, and ISDN severely

hampers our business capacity to be competitive in our field of

internet website development and delivering our internet services.

Bell has our firm captive in a competitive disadvantage. Short of

relocating our business to an urban center, we have no options.

Under Bell's proposal, we would be paying more for rural basic

service than our nearby urban counterparts and still receiving

distinctly inferior quality and availability of service.

I urge the CRTC to tie quality to price. I would gladly pay fair

compensation to Bell if the high speed internet access that our

business needs in order to compete were available. Business should be

able to have a level-playing field when it comes to Bell's service

offerings; rural businesses shouldn't be penalized and handicapped by

lack of modern phone services.

Sincerely,

Christine Rowland

President

Blue Cat Design Inc.

_____________________ BLUE CAT DESIGN _________________________

Christine Collie Rowland, CEO & Creative Director

Web Site Design * Internet Marketing * e-Commerce * Editorial

voice:905-753-1017 fax:905-753-2777 Email:info@bluecatdesign.com

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