Thursday 16 August 2012

Letter to CRTC Reference the Deferral Account Program

I recently submitted a personal  letter to the CRTC expressing my displeasure at the 31 Jul 2012 proposal by Bell to delay implementation of the Deferral Account program in some areas of the Algoma District until August 2012.

I also included a copy of a paper I prepared last year questioning how the HSPA+ data hub service is covering Deferral Account areas and asked for action by the CRTC in light of this coverage. Additional sites that spill over into Deferral Account areas have since been added.

One of the problems in dealing with the CRTC is that unless one is responding to a call for public proceedings that is open, it is not easy to get a complaint or comment into the hands of the CRTC. In the end, I wrote using the same address as Bell used so I shall see what happens.  I am hoping the CRTC is willing to back-up the comments made by CRTC Commissioner  Katz at the Telecom Summit held in Toronto in June this year when he said:

" Broadband service is more and more of a necessity for full participation in the digital economy and in our life as Canadians. The funds were collected over a number of years from Bell subscribers. I urge our friends at Bell to give a higher priority to the needs of the people in these rural and remote communities by accelerating their rollout plans.”
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2 comments:

  1. rt17 August 2012 at 12:04

    Kudos for chasing after this. If the congestion issue in these rural areas is any indication, there must be a lot of people buying into the existing services, and ultimately impacted by the issues to date. Maybe not an angry mob (yet?) but I do get the impression that a few more people are talking about the ADnet blog recently, fwiw. So maybe we'll get some traction?

    Anyway, thank you for being the voice of the people out here in the weeds. Please keep us posted.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hermes18 September 2012 at 16:35

    I received an acknowledge from the CRTC on 18 Sep 12 concerning my submission on further delays in the roll out of the Bell Deferral Account accounts in selected areas of the Algoma District. Links to the details of my submission are at this blog entry.

    The CRTC stated the following:

    "In order to follow this matter, I am requesting Bell Canada, by copy of this message, to respond directly to you within 20 calendar days and to send a copy of its reply to us for review. Should CRTC staff's review conclude that further regulatory action is required you will be notified accordingly."

    I make the 20 day calendar days to be around the 08 Oct 12 which is Thanksgiving Day. I am not sure if this is ironic or fortuitist. In any case, I will provide an update of any information provided by Bell with regard to the Deferral Account program.

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