Rural rates can catch up with new price cap decision

GATINEAU – The CRTC today released new pricing rules that will govern the rates charged by large telephone companies for local telephone services, until forbearance arrives. The rules, known collectively as the price cap regime, will come into effect on June 1, 2007, and apply to Bell Canada, Telus, SaskTel, MTS Allstream and Bell Aliant. They only apply in regions where local phone service has not been deregulated. So they will apply everywhere at first and quickly become less and less important as markets are forborne from regulation. "This third-generation price cap regime provides greater pricing flexibility for large telephone...