CRTC Orders Rural Broadband Expansion, Phone Rebates

Additionally, the phone companies — Bell Canada, Telus, MTS Allstream, SaskTel and Bell Aliant — have until March 25 to submit proposals to the CRTC on how they plan to issue rebates to residential customers living in cities. Those customers have since 2002 been paying into so-called deferral accounts, which have been administered by the respective phone companies and which the regulator estimates to now total $650 million. At the time, the CRTC decided against allowing price cuts on local phone services in order to entice cable companies such as Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications to invest in their own phone networks, which would compete with the likes of Bell and Telus. Urban customers thus continued paying the same rates, with the amount of the proposed cut — which was to be the rate of inflation minus a productivity offset of 3.5 per cent — instead going into the accounts. ... http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/01/17/tech-rural-broadband.html

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