OTTAWA – The CRTC is calling for comments over the confidentiality of information it uses to establish wholesale service rates.
When establishing these rates, the Commission generally uses an incremental costing approach, known as Phase II costing, to evaluate the incumbent telephone and cable carriers’ costs of providing wholesale service to competitors. Incumbent carriers submit regulatory economic studies that contain Phase II costing information and reflect the costs of prospective incremental resources used to provide the service, some of which may be submitted with a designation of confidentiality. The CRTC then applies a markup to these costs as a contribution to the incumbents’ fixed and common costs.
Various stakeholders have been publicly critical of the rate setting process, including the Canadian Network Operators Consortium Inc. (CNOC) which recently appealed two CRTC decisions around the rates set for usage-based billing.
The CRTC said Thursday that it is seeking comments regarding “the specific additional information” that should be expected to be provided on the public record in the context of setting rates for wholesale services.
Interventions are due by May 22, 2012 and the CRTC said that it expects to publish a decision on the issues raised in this notice within four months of the close of record.
