OTTAWA-HULL — In today's decision, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission finalizes the existing standards for quality of service indicators placed on the telephone companies and imposes three new indicators for measuring service quality. This decision emphasizes the importance the Commission places on the quality of telecommunications services provided to Canadians.

These standards, originally developed in 1982, ensure that telephone consumers receive an acceptable level of service from their telephone company. These standards make it easier for the Commission to identify service quality problems as they arise and it enables the Commission to work with the telephone companies to implement corrective measures, where necessary. The telephone companies identify service quality issues through self-reporting and subscriber complaints.

Each telephone company submits a quarterly report to the Commission on 16 indicators. The service level of each indicator is measured against a prescribed standard that must be met. If a standard is not met, the telephone companies are required to report to the Commission on why the standard was not met and provide a remedy.

The three new quality of service indicators are:

• the time it takes to field customer requests and inquiries;
• the number of customer complaints that have not been satisfied within 10 working days; and
• the speed and accuracy of directory assistance.

(standards for these three indicators remain to be established)

The current quality of service indicators are:

• the number of days required to provide service from the date of the customer's request;
• the total number of installation appointments booked and the number met;
• the number of outstanding requests for Network Access Services not met because of facility shortages;
• the number of rural outstanding requests for higher grades of service (e.g., from 4-party to 2-party service) unfilled for more than 30 days;
• the percentage of calls to a business office answered in 20 seconds or less;
• competitor installation appointments met;
• on-time activation of service switched to a competitor;
• the total number of out-of-service trouble reports and those cleared within 24 hours;
• repair appointments met;
• initial customer trouble reports indicating improper functioning of service;
• community isolation resulting from trunk failure that last one hour or more;
• the percentage of calls to a repair bureau answered in 20 seconds or less;
• the total number of installation appointments booked and the number met, who are competitors;
• the percentage of attempted calls during the busy hour experiencing dial tone delay of three seconds or less
• the percentage of customer listings in the white pages of company directories published without errors or omissions;
• number of days required to resolve customer complaints addressed (in writing or orally) to officers and Department Heads of the telephone companies and the Commission;

Because of the unique environment in the far north, Northwestel will be required to report certain service indicators at community levels versus reporting on a territory-wide basis, which is the case for the other telephone companies.

The telephone companies required to provide quarterly quality of service reports are those with more than 25,000 access lines. They include: Telus Communications (B.C.) Inc., Bell Canada, Island Telecom Inc., Maritime Tel & Tel Limited, MTS Communications Inc., NBTel Inc., NewTel Communications Inc., Northern Telephone Limited; Northwestel Inc., Québec-Téléphone; Télébec ltée., Telus Communications Inc., and the Corporation of the City of Thunder Bay - Telephone Division.

Reference Document: Decision CRTC 2000-24

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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.