Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Jul 06/98) - The CRTC wants to make sure when competition comes to NorthwesTel's service area, it won't drive already high costs through the roof.

So the commission is gathering public information concerning on creating a high cost serving area fund.

The CRTC recently held public consultations in the North over the pending introduction of competition.

Northerners said they wanted the fund to keep costs down by helping providers in high-cost areas offer competitive long-distance rates to their customers without being forced to hike local costs to subsidize the service.

Mark Hickey, North-wesTel's assistant vice-president, customer services, Nunavut, said Northerners should support the fund's development because it will benefit everybody -- not just NorthwesTel.

"Everybody should be on board. It's not a subsidy that flows directly to NorthwesTel. It flows to all telephone companies in all high-cost service areas," he said.

He added that by requiring both southern and Northern-based communications providers to pay a stipend to the fund, the North would finally see the benefits of competition that have existed in southern Canada for years.

"Monies from the south would flow into the North," Hickey said.

Chris Cote, Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce president, said he was afraid competition would allow new service providers to ignore the smaller communities and offer service only to the larger ones.

"I'm afraid they'll come in and cherry pick from the larger communities. I don't want to see Iqaluit get the best deals again."

CRTC commissioner David Colville told Cote cherry picking was a very real concern of the CRTC and was one of the major reasons the proceedings were being conducted.

"It's not a question if we're going to do something but how we're going to do something," Colville said.

It is expected that the CRTC will hand down their decision concerning the fund in 1999.