Service Improvement Plan
Encyclopedia
The Service Improvement Plan (SIP) is a program mandated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to provide a defined level of basic telephone
service to all Canadians
, other than those so isolated that it is costly and impractical to reach. The companies completed the programs in the middle of the 2000-2009 decade, with a cut-off of availability to customers in 2007 or 2008. (Customers who did not act on the program must now bear the full cost of service installation.)
(owned by Call-Net) for an order by the CRTC to Northwestel
to interconnect for long distance service. On February 28, 1997, the CRTC denied the application, but started a public proceeding to determine if NorthwesTel's service area should have long distance competition.
As a result of public hearings during 1997 on the issue, it became evident to the CRTC that there were locations that considered their phone service to be inferior. The CRTC issued Public Notice 97-42, Service to High Cost Serving Areas (PN 97-42). The objective was to hold hearings across Canada to determine a definition of basic service and to define high cost serving areas.
The CRTC held regional consultations on the issues of PN 97-42 in eight locations from Whitehorse
, Yukon
to Deer Lake
, Newfoundland and Labrador
during May and June of 1998, and received comments and submissions from the public, telephone companies and other organizations. In some locations, video conferencing
or audio conferencing
brought additional communities into the regional consultations.
On October 19, 1999, the CRTC issued Telecom Decision 99-16, defining basic service as including security
features such as Caller ID
, local dial-up
connectivity to the Internet
, access to long distance service, among other things. The CRTC also found that Northwestel's operating area was entirely a high-cost serving area, and that supplementary funding may be required to raise the level of phone service and to maintain that service in the face of competition.
Most ILEC phone companies in Canada were ordered to submit Service Improvement Plans in order to bring all of their customers up to the basic service objective, and to provide service to unserved customers. Among the companies affected by this order were Northwestel
, Bell Canada
, Telus
, MTS
of Manitoba
, NewTel
of Newfoundland
, SaskTel
of Saskatchewan
and Telebec
of Quebec
.
lines), replacement of central office equipment (again, often outdated), replacement of assorted radio telephone service technologies with wireline service or fixed radio link wireless services providing direct dial capability, and extension of service to unserved customers, again, with wireline or fixed radio link wireless services.
Cost sharing is a feature of the program. The benefitting customer pays a portion of the charges, usually the first $1,000 of usually the first $25,000. If the cost exceeds $25,000 to serve a customer, the customer is usually responsible to pay $1,000 plus any cost that exceeds $25,000. Such high cost is rare, and usually only occurs where the telephone company must install new microwave relay towers to service the customer.
The telephone companies typically phased the program over several years, usually no more than four, with the focus on improving service to the larger groups of customers first, and providing new service to larger groups of unserved customers first.
In the case of Northwestel, the four year program involved distributing the project over the four jurisdictions the company's operating area covered: British Columbia
, Yukon
, the Northwest Territories
, and Nunavut
.
One small effect of the program was to better define company service territories in rural
areas that had not previously been served. For example, Northwestel and Telus more clearly defined the service boundary between Wonowon
and Fort St. John
, British Columbia.
The Fort Fitzgerald, Alberta
area was transferred to Northwestel as a result of an order in 2003, since it could be served by Northwestel at a much lower cost than by Telus. Fort Fitzgerald was a minor contentious issue with Telus, as Northwestel claimed it did not serve Alberta, while Telus stated that Northwestel did have some customers in Alberta, possibly having been served by the Fort Smith Telephone Company before it was sold in 1964 to the predecessor of Northwestel.
The plan largely consisted of replacing equipment in exchanges and on long distance networks. This equipment was mostly manufacturer-discontinued, or no longer supported, but the equipment continued to meet the company's operational requirements. Much of this equipment was on routes and in communities where economic activity would not generate the revenue required to replace the equipment, without carrying loans over an extremely long period of time. This had the effect that a market case could not be generated to gain shareholder (Bell Canada
) approval to spend the limited capital funding to replace it with modern equipment.
The original planned cost was $76 million. The CRTC cut the program to $67 million, eliminating a plan for local dial-up Internet access in small communities, and also removing Caller ID as part of the basic service objective within the Northwestel operating area. Many existing exchanges cannot support Caller ID, but the only reason to replace them was to provide this feature, therefore, the CRTC ruled that the cost was too high.
In 2003, however, at the company's request, the CRTC reviewed the issue of local access to the Internet, found that other Internet service provider
s had not expanded service to unserved communities, and authorized Northwestel to provide the service, under the SIP program, to any small community that did not already have a local provider.
An effort in 2002–2003 to have Caller ID covered under the program, in response to community demands for its safety features, was also refused. However, four fairly large communities were allowed to have the cost included under the program, since the CRTC decided the market conditions were favourable in those four locations.
One of the key elements of the SIP program for Northwestel was the provision of new and improved service to customer premises. Numerous rural areas had no wireline service, and the few customers in those subdivisions with service had some form of wireless service, cellular when possible, manual radio telephone service elsewhere. Some customers could not use any wireless service, even satellite
phones, due to their location in a gully
with a hill to the south.
The SIP program focused on providing wireline, where feasible, to these areas. As the program met these needs, existing customers served by party line service, or private lines with a long reach back to the central office, were next to be upgraded. (Such long lines had a resultant hum on the line caused by amplifier
s. They also had low fax
/modem
speeds due to signal attenuation.) Finally, individual isolated customers requiring fixed radio link services were to be provided service.
All three aspects — exchange replacement, long distance route improvement and customer premises connections — were spread over the four year phasing of the program of the 2001 planning year to the 2004 planning year. Work continued into 2007.
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
service to all Canadians
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, other than those so isolated that it is costly and impractical to reach. The companies completed the programs in the middle of the 2000-2009 decade, with a cut-off of availability to customers in 2007 or 2008. (Customers who did not act on the program must now bear the full cost of service installation.)
Origin
The process leading to SIP actually had its origins with an application on October 15, 1996 by Sprint CanadaRogers Telecom
Rogers Telecom Inc. is a subsidiary of Rogers Communications. It is a Toronto-based company with focus on integrated communications solutions provider of data, e-business and voice services to business and households...
(owned by Call-Net) for an order by the CRTC to Northwestel
Northwestel
Northwestel Inc. is the incumbent local exchange carrier and long distance carrier in Northern Canada. The company name is a portmanteau, sometimes spelled NorthwesTel, for Northwest Telecommunications.-Modern corporate history:...
to interconnect for long distance service. On February 28, 1997, the CRTC denied the application, but started a public proceeding to determine if NorthwesTel's service area should have long distance competition.
As a result of public hearings during 1997 on the issue, it became evident to the CRTC that there were locations that considered their phone service to be inferior. The CRTC issued Public Notice 97-42, Service to High Cost Serving Areas (PN 97-42). The objective was to hold hearings across Canada to determine a definition of basic service and to define high cost serving areas.
The CRTC held regional consultations on the issues of PN 97-42 in eight locations from Whitehorse
Whitehorse, Yukon
Whitehorse is Yukon's capital and largest city . It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1476 on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas occupy both shores of the Yukon River, which originates in British Columbia and meets the Bering Sea in...
, Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
to Deer Lake
Deer Lake, Newfoundland and Labrador
-External links:*...
, Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
during May and June of 1998, and received comments and submissions from the public, telephone companies and other organizations. In some locations, video conferencing
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...
or audio conferencing
Conference call
A conference call is a telephone call in which the calling party wishes to have more than one called party listen in to the audio portion of the call. The conference calls may be designed to allow the called party to participate during the call, or the call may be set up so that the called party...
brought additional communities into the regional consultations.
On October 19, 1999, the CRTC issued Telecom Decision 99-16, defining basic service as including security
Communications security
Communications security is the discipline of preventing unauthorized interceptors from accessing telecommunications in an intelligible form, while still delivering content to the intended recipients. In the United States Department of Defense culture, it is often referred to by the abbreviation...
features such as Caller ID
Caller ID
Caller ID , also called calling line identification or calling number identification or Calling Line Identification Presentation , is a telephone service, available in analog and digital phone systems and most Voice over Internet Protocol applications, that transmits a caller's number to...
, local dial-up
Dial-up access
Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network to establish a dialled connection to an Internet service provider via telephone lines...
connectivity to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, access to long distance service, among other things. The CRTC also found that Northwestel's operating area was entirely a high-cost serving area, and that supplementary funding may be required to raise the level of phone service and to maintain that service in the face of competition.
Most ILEC phone companies in Canada were ordered to submit Service Improvement Plans in order to bring all of their customers up to the basic service objective, and to provide service to unserved customers. Among the companies affected by this order were Northwestel
Northwestel
Northwestel Inc. is the incumbent local exchange carrier and long distance carrier in Northern Canada. The company name is a portmanteau, sometimes spelled NorthwesTel, for Northwest Telecommunications.-Modern corporate history:...
, Bell Canada
Bell Canada
Bell Canada is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Including its subsidiaries such as Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for telephone and DSL Internet services in most of Canada east of Manitoba and in the northern territories,...
, Telus
TELUS
Telus is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video, and satellite television. The company is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver...
, MTS
Manitoba Telecom Services
Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. , or MTS , formerly Manitoba Telephone System, is the primary telecommunications carrier in the Canadian province of Manitoba and the fourth largest telecommunications provider in Canada with 7000 employees...
of Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, NewTel
Aliant
Bell Aliant Inc. is a communications company providing services in various areas throughout eastern Canada, as Bell Aliant throughout Atlantic Canada, and under the NorthernTel, and Télébec brands in rural areas of Ontario and Quebec....
of Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
, SaskTel
SaskTel
Saskatchewan Telecommunications is a provincial Crown Corporation operating under the authority of the Saskatchewan Telecommunications Act. It is the only remaining Crown Corporation in the Canadian telecommunications industry....
of Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
and Telebec
Télébec
Télébec is a telephone company located in the province of Quebec in Canada. It serves various sectors like the James Bay territory area, the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, parts of central and southern Quebec and parts of the Outaouais region....
of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
.
Implementation
Projects covered by the Service Improvement Plan include upgrade of long distance circuits (often outdated microwaveMicrowave
Microwaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...
lines), replacement of central office equipment (again, often outdated), replacement of assorted radio telephone service technologies with wireline service or fixed radio link wireless services providing direct dial capability, and extension of service to unserved customers, again, with wireline or fixed radio link wireless services.
Cost sharing is a feature of the program. The benefitting customer pays a portion of the charges, usually the first $1,000 of usually the first $25,000. If the cost exceeds $25,000 to serve a customer, the customer is usually responsible to pay $1,000 plus any cost that exceeds $25,000. Such high cost is rare, and usually only occurs where the telephone company must install new microwave relay towers to service the customer.
The telephone companies typically phased the program over several years, usually no more than four, with the focus on improving service to the larger groups of customers first, and providing new service to larger groups of unserved customers first.
In the case of Northwestel, the four year program involved distributing the project over the four jurisdictions the company's operating area covered: British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
, the Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...
, and Nunavut
Nunavut
Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...
.
One small effect of the program was to better define company service territories in rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
areas that had not previously been served. For example, Northwestel and Telus more clearly defined the service boundary between Wonowon
Wonowon, British Columbia
Wonowon is a community in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, located at Mile 101 on Highway 97, the Alaska Highway. The present-day community name is derived from the mile number, "one-oh-one", however, the area was historically known as Blueberry. The community is part of the Peace River...
and Fort St. John
Fort St. John, British Columbia
The City of Fort St. John is a city in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. A member municipality of the Peace River Regional District, the city covers an area of about 22 km² with 22,000 residents . Located at Mile 47, it is one of the largest cities along the Alaska Highway. Originally...
, British Columbia.
The Fort Fitzgerald, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
area was transferred to Northwestel as a result of an order in 2003, since it could be served by Northwestel at a much lower cost than by Telus. Fort Fitzgerald was a minor contentious issue with Telus, as Northwestel claimed it did not serve Alberta, while Telus stated that Northwestel did have some customers in Alberta, possibly having been served by the Fort Smith Telephone Company before it was sold in 1964 to the predecessor of Northwestel.
Northwestel area implementation
Northwestel was required to file its SIP by January 31, 2000, a year before the requirement on the other companies.The plan largely consisted of replacing equipment in exchanges and on long distance networks. This equipment was mostly manufacturer-discontinued, or no longer supported, but the equipment continued to meet the company's operational requirements. Much of this equipment was on routes and in communities where economic activity would not generate the revenue required to replace the equipment, without carrying loans over an extremely long period of time. This had the effect that a market case could not be generated to gain shareholder (Bell Canada
Bell Canada
Bell Canada is a major Canadian telecommunications company. Including its subsidiaries such as Bell Aliant, Northwestel, Télébec, and NorthernTel, it is the incumbent local exchange carrier for telephone and DSL Internet services in most of Canada east of Manitoba and in the northern territories,...
) approval to spend the limited capital funding to replace it with modern equipment.
The original planned cost was $76 million. The CRTC cut the program to $67 million, eliminating a plan for local dial-up Internet access in small communities, and also removing Caller ID as part of the basic service objective within the Northwestel operating area. Many existing exchanges cannot support Caller ID, but the only reason to replace them was to provide this feature, therefore, the CRTC ruled that the cost was too high.
In 2003, however, at the company's request, the CRTC reviewed the issue of local access to the Internet, found that other Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s had not expanded service to unserved communities, and authorized Northwestel to provide the service, under the SIP program, to any small community that did not already have a local provider.
An effort in 2002–2003 to have Caller ID covered under the program, in response to community demands for its safety features, was also refused. However, four fairly large communities were allowed to have the cost included under the program, since the CRTC decided the market conditions were favourable in those four locations.
One of the key elements of the SIP program for Northwestel was the provision of new and improved service to customer premises. Numerous rural areas had no wireline service, and the few customers in those subdivisions with service had some form of wireless service, cellular when possible, manual radio telephone service elsewhere. Some customers could not use any wireless service, even satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
phones, due to their location in a gully
Gully
A gully is a landform created by running water, eroding sharply into soil, typically on a hillside. Gullies resemble large ditches or small valleys, but are metres to tens of metres in depth and width...
with a hill to the south.
The SIP program focused on providing wireline, where feasible, to these areas. As the program met these needs, existing customers served by party line service, or private lines with a long reach back to the central office, were next to be upgraded. (Such long lines had a resultant hum on the line caused by amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
s. They also had low fax
Fax
Fax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
/modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
speeds due to signal attenuation.) Finally, individual isolated customers requiring fixed radio link services were to be provided service.
All three aspects — exchange replacement, long distance route improvement and customer premises connections — were spread over the four year phasing of the program of the 2001 planning year to the 2004 planning year. Work continued into 2007.