CRTC "put the brakes" on NWTel plan
Terry Halifax
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 28/01) - Northerners waiting for advanced telephone features such as call waiting will have to wait a while longer.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has postponed NorthwesTel's application for upgrades which included local a Internet provider and advanced calling features.
In October of 1999, the CRTC directed all Canadian phone companies to provide basic service with their calling area.
The CRTC defines basic service as:
NorthwesTel services 68,000 customers, spread over four million square kilometres and four time zones. The CRTC determined that the vast service area is much more expensive to cover than in southern jurisdictions where there are large concentrations of population. The commission decided that upgrades to basic service would be subsidized through collections from southern telephone companies.
Michelle Edge, Senior Regional Officer for the Vancouver office of the CRTC said the costs associated with the complete upgrade were too much to ask of the southern companies, so the upgrades will be phased in incrementally.
"They put the brakes on NorthwesTel's plan," Edge said. "When they filed their application to upgrade service, they originally aimed to spend about $75 million, which we thought was excessive."
Anne Grainger, director of public affairs for NorthwesTel said that last November, the CRTC decided that NorthwesTel will be paid $15.1 million from the subsidy from southern phone companies to upgrade service. The new upgrades will not include local Internet and some communities will not receive advanced calling features.
"That was a major part of the decision," Grainger said. "That funding will go to the service improvement upgrades as well as offsetting the long distance rates, so they are comparable to southern rates."
While the CRTC has opened the door to southern long distance competition, the NWT has yet to see any southern companies enter the market.
"There are a few companies selling pre-paid calling cards now, but prior to the decision, they weren't allowed to market them in our area," she said.
NWTel will be upgrading the long distance network, switching and facilities in a number of communities. Although not part of the CRTC decision, Grainger says that as the upgrades are completed, some communities will still receive some of the advanced calling features.
"It'll improve voice quality and data transmission," she said. "There were no incremental costs associated with the calling features."
Grainger said there are still a few "pockets of customers" in the NWT, who don't have local access telephone service, such as Prelude Lake and residents along the Ingraham Trail outside Yellowknife.
