GATINEAU — In a procedural letter dated April 3, the CRTC informed Bell and Rogers it was extending the deadline for Bell to comply with the Commission’s December 2019 decision that directed Bell to deploy one-way toll trunks to connect to Rogers switches in the Bell operating territories in which Rogers also provides service, which was supposed to resolve the two companies’ dispute over toll-free call routing.
In the letter, the Commission says it considers the Covid-19 pandemic to be “an unprecedented force majeure situation during which it would not be appropriate for the Commission to expect Bell to make these non-essential changes to their networks.”
In its Telecom Decision CRTC 2019-390, issued December 2, 2019, the Commission had directed Bell to deploy the one-way toll trunks within 150 days of the decision, which would have given Bell a deadline of April 30, 2020. In addition, Bell was required to file proposed revised tariff pages to the Commission at least 30 days prior to completing deployment of the one-way toll trunks.
On December 20, 2019, Bell filed a review and vary application and also asked the Commission to stay its decision until it ruled on Bell’s R&V application. Rogers opposed both the R&V application and the stay request.
“Since the record of this proceeding closed on 14 February 2020, Canada has been engulfed by the global COVID-19 pandemic which is having a profound effect on all Canadians, who have been directed by their governments to practice social distancing and to remain at home in order to help contain the spread of this virus. As a result of the pandemic and millions more Canadians suddenly staying home and working from home, the volume of traffic has dramatically increased and other changes are being observed which impact Canadian telecommunications networks. The Commission recognizes that telecommunications service providers (TSPs), including Bell and Rogers, are rightly focused on ensuring that their networks continue to function at peak efficiency to meet the unique and heavy demands being placed on them at this time,” the Commission wrote in its April 3 procedural letter.
The Commission is now giving Bell until August 17, 2020 to deploy the one-way toll trunks and until July 20 to file the revised tariff pages. The Commission notes it is continuing to review Bell’s R&V application and stay request.
