ARCHIVED -  Telecom Order CRTC 97-261

Telecom Order

Ottawa, 26 February 1997

Telecom Order CRTC 97-261

IN THE MATTER OF applications filed by Stentor Resource Centre Inc. (Stentor) under Tariff Notice 375 dated 12 November 1996, on behalf of and with the concurrence of the Stentor companies, and TELUS Communications (Edmonton) Inc. (TCEI), (formerly ED TEL Communications Inc.) under Tariff Notice 38 dated 12 November 1996, respecting eligibility criteria with respect to tariffs for educational and health service entities.

WHEREAS in Tariffs for Educational and Health Service Entities, Telecom Decision CRTC 96-9, 27 September 1996 (Decision 96-9), the Commission approved additional pricing flexibility for the Stentor companies' competitive service offerings, to permit them to offer telecommunications services to eligible educational and health service (EH) entities on more favourable terms and stated that it is appropriate to extend to TCEI, which provides local services only, the pricing flexibility provided by Type 2 customer-specific arrangements for the EH sectors;

WHEREAS in the proceeding leading to Decision 96-9, Stentor filed proposed criteria with respect to the persons and entities which would be eligible for preferential tariff arrangements and TCEI generally endorsed Stentor's criteria for identifying eligible EH entities;

WHEREAS Stentor submitted in the proceeding which led to Decision 96-9 that eligible educational entities would be schools, colleges, universities and public libraries, that such entities must be non-profit, and either be government accredited (or a non-profit agent of such an entity) or provide a government approved curriculum/program (or be a non-profit agent of such an entity) and that such entities would be eligible to negotiate a customer-specific arrangement for any or all of their telecommunications services;

WHEREAS Stentor further proposed in that proceeding that other non-profit entities which offer accredited/approved educational curriculum/programs, but which are not themselves schools, colleges, universities or public libraries, would also be eligible to negotiate a preferential arrangement for telecommunications services where the arrangement was "designed to promote learning" and would "directly benefit" either a school, college, university or public library;

WHEREAS in the proceeding which led to Decision 96-9, Stentor also submitted criteria for health entities dealing with human health: hospitals and regional health boards would be eligible for a preferential arrangement with respect to all their telecommunications needs; non-profit telemedicine network providers (TNPs), which provide remote diagnostic information, and non-profit community health information networks (CHINs), which disseminate community health information, would be eligible, but only for telecommunica-tions services directly related to a "health application" they are responsible for developing and maintaining; a "health application", as used by Stentor, would be an application directly related to the delivery by medical professionals of health services to patients; individual medical professionals would also be eligible under Stentor's proposal, but only as a TNP or for a CHIN to access the health application; because Stentor considered a "medical professional" as a person licensed by a professional association and eligible to receive payments from the provincial medicare program, the exact inclusion of a given medical professional in this category would depend on provincial regulation;

WHEREAS the Commission stated in Decision 96-9 that it considered Stentor's eligibility criteria to be generally acceptable but noted that Stentor had not set out its proposed criteria comprehensively and invited Stentor, on behalf of its members, to file proposed tariff pages setting out eligibility criteria for the EH sectors;

WHEREAS in Decision 96-9 the Commission also agreed with parties who commented that consistency of eligibility criteria is appropriate, where possible, and considered that, if TCEI wished to proceed, it should include public libraries and non-profit agents of eligible educational entities in its criteria and file for approval proposed tariff pages setting out its eligibility criteria with respect to the EH sectors;

WHEREAS Stentor filed Tariff Notice 375 and TCEI filed Tariff Notice 38 in response to Decision 96-9;

WHEREAS AT&T Canada Long Distance Services Company (AT&T Canada), Westel Telecommunications Ltd. (Westel), and ACC TelEnterprises Ltd. (ACC) submitted comments on Stentor Tariff Notice 375 and Stentor submitted comment in reply;

WHEREAS parties commented that the proposed criteria provide the telephone companies too much discretion in interpreting the criteria;

WHEREAS certain parties commented that a preferential tariff should not be accorded ex parte treatment;

WHEREAS Westel noted that the criteria, as filed, did not reflect the Commission's determination that an individual medical professional must be eligible to receive payments from a provincial medicare program to be eligible to receive a preferential tariff;

WHEREAS Stentor replied that such a restriction would prevent certain medical professionals from benefitting from a preferential tariff;

WHEREAS Westel requested certain amendments to, for example, restrict access to health service applications provided by CHINs to applications provided on a non-profit basis;

WHEREAS AT&T Canada submitted that for-profit entities that may be associated with an eligible entity, but which are defined as separate customers in their own right, should not be eligible for preferential tariffs;

WHEREAS ACC submitted that Stentor's Ambassador Program should not be included in preferential tariffs;

WHEREAS Stentor replied that the agency relationships established by the Ambassador Program are beyond the scope of preferential tariffs for the EH sectors;

WHEREAS ACC expressed concern that the proposed stipulation prohibiting resale of any tariff exclusive to EH entities would be insufficient to deal with the potential for resale by educational institutions of services to their students of services received under the terms of a preferential tariff;

WHEREAS ACC commented that the term "eligible telecommunications services" is not defined;

WHEREAS the Commission considers that use of the term "eligible" telecommunications services in the tariffs as filed is confusing given that the Commission did not restrict the telecommunications services that may comprise an EH tariff;

WHEREAS, with respect to the discretion permitted to the companies by the proposed tariff, the Commission considers that it is each company's obligation to ensure compliance with its tariff;

WHEREAS the Commission considers that preferential tariffs for the EH sectors may be filed on an ex parte basis;

WHEREAS the Commission considers that, consistent with its determination in Decision 96-9, the definition of "health professional" should include the requirement that an individual medical professional must be eligible to receive payments from a provincial medicare program;

WHEREAS the Commission disagrees with Westel's suggestion that, notwithstanding that a health professional meets the eligibility criteria for more favourable terms to access a health services application provided by a TNP or a CHIN, the services that a health professional may access should be limited to services which operate on a non-profit basis;

WHEREAS the Commission agrees with AT&T Canada that for-profit entities associated with an eligible entity which are separate customers in their own right should not be eligible for preferential tariffs, but does not consider that a change to the proposed tariffs is required to accomplish this;

WHEREAS the Commission notes that the Ambassador Program is not a tariffed service and so is not eligible for inclusion in a preferential tariff;

WHEREAS, with respect to ACC's concern regarding the potential for resale by the educational sector of telecommunications services it obtains on preferential terms, the Commission notes that the provision of such telecommunications services by universities to their students would constitute resale, which will be prohibited by the terms of the tariff under which the educational entity receives more favourable terms;

WHEREAS the Commission notes that Stentor and TCEI have proposed that "private hospitals" will be eligible to receive more favourable tariff terms with respect to telecommunications services providing access to a health services application provided by a TNP or a CHIN and that Stentor and TCEI propose to define a "private hospital" as "any facility or portion thereof that provides hospital care, including acute, rehabilitative or chronic care and that is not funded by a federal or provincial government";

WHEREAS the Commission considers government funding to be an appropriate criteria for identifying organizations which should benefit from more favourable tariffs, and notes that this approach was taken in Decision 96-9 with respect to criteria for identifying eligible "health professionals";

WHEREAS the Commission notes that, pursuant to the proposed tariffs, health professionals could receive more favourable rates for telecommunications services which would allow them to access services other than TNP or CHIN provided health services;

WHEREAS the Commission considers that it would not be appropriate for health professionals to receive reduced rates for telecommunications services used to access non-health related services; and

WHEREAS the Commission considers that the criteria are set out most clearly in the style and format used in TCEI Tariff Notice 38 -

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:

1. Stentor and TCEI are directed to modify the definition of "health professional" to include the requirement that an individual medical professional must be eligible to receive payments from a provincial medicare program.

2. Stentor and TCEI are directed to delete the references to "private hospitals" as being eligible health service entities.

3. Stentor and TCEI are directed to amend Item 902.3(c) and Item 6701.2.2(1)(c) respectively of their proposed tariff filings, by adding the word "solely", so that those items provide that health professionals may obtain more favourable terms for "only those telecommunications services providing access solely to a health services application provided by" a TNP or a CHIN.

4. Stentor is directed to delete the word "eligible" from the phrase "eligible telecommunications services" where it appears in Item 902.3(a) for each of Eligible Health Services and Educational Entities, and TCEI is directed to delete the word "eligible" from the phrase "eligible telecommunications services" where it appears in Item 6701.2.2(1)(a) and 6701.3.2(1)(b).

5. TCEI is directed to delete the words "operates or" (repetitive) in Item 6701.3.1(i) and, in Item 6701.2.2(b), add "a" after "of", and delete "for" after "application".

6. Stentor and TCEI are directed to issue forthwith final tariff pages, incorporating the directions above, in the style and format used in TCEI Tariff Notice 38.

Allan J. Darling
Secretary General