Paul Hutton-Ashkenny, IndiGo Networks’ president, said in a submission to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that to link users of different telecommunications systems – BTC and IndiGo’s – to enable them to communicate with one another, both networks were interconnected or joined through circuits.
BTC mandated that it provided those circuits, and was charging IndiGo full retail price minus 15 per cent. Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny said BTC and IndiGo currently had 28 T1 circuits installed or on order to interconnect their networks, adding that at current prices – before BTC’s proposed line rental access rate increases were approved – his company was paying its competitor $226,195 per annum for the interconnection.
Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny wrote: “In its letter of application, BTC attempts to position its request for a price increase in terms of encouraging competition, because it will allow new entrants to more effectively price their competing services.
“What BTC fails to mention is that because the costs of interconnection circuits that join their network to that of another licensee are all incurred by their competitor, the effect of increasing their local access charges will be a knock-on increase in fee from interconnection circuits at the expense of BTC’s competitors.
“BTC’s assertion therefore that its price increase facilitates new market entry is patently false.”
BTC’s proposed rental rate increases will take the price for residential customers to $15 from $9.50, and business rates from $20 to $36 per month, increases of 50 per cent and 84 per cent respectively.
Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny said the addition of every 240 subscribers to IndiGo Networks’ network would require an extra T1 interconnection circuit to join them with BTC’s network.
Cost
That currently cost IndiGo $2.80 per month per subscriber, while BTC “makes no contribution for the advantage it has received in being able to allow its customers to terminate calls to. IndiGo subscribers on IndiGo’s network. In fact, BTC has profited from the process, and will profit further from any approved price increase”.
Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny called on the PUC to instruct BTC that the actual cost of providing the interconnection circuit be shared equally between it and IndiGo, saying: “That BTC not only makes no contribution to the cost of joining networks, but also prof-its from it, is unconscionable.”
The IndiGo president also called upon the PUC to hold BTC to the same service standards and international best practices applied to his company, plus a penalty driven service guarantee scheme, if the price rises were approved.
Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny also pointed out that while BTC currently charged $9.50 for residential monthly line residential access, calls to its Marathon Mall offices indicated that a $1.25 per month “mandatory charge” for the telephone itself was included, regardless of whether one was provided.
As a result, Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny said consumers should be advised that rental charges were really set to increase from $10.75 to $16.25, not $1,5, or BTC should only charge the $1.25 when telephones were provided.
A similar situation also existed for business customers, Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny saying that “this is all the more galling” as most businesses rented a KeySystem or small PBX from BTC to connect their lines, so were unable to connect additional equipment for which they were being charged.
The IndiGo president added that the $0.75 per month charged by BTC for residential customers to be listed in the phone directory should not be an authorised charge, and should now be part of the line rental.
Businesses were charged $33 per month for each line in a 24-line T1 voice circuit, making a monthly total of $792, with the installation fee at $1,200. Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny said he now assumed the line rental rate would become $36, costing businesses a monthly $864.
He added that the same was also likely to happen for the $83.75 per line that BTC charged for a 24-line T1 ISDN PRI voice circuit, making a monthly total of $2,010 with a $2,920 installation charge.
Mr. Hutton-Ashkenny said he assumed, the rate would nowbecome $36 per line with a $1200 installation fee, and urged that BTC be instructed accordingly.
Source: Neil Hartnell, The Tribune
