A4 - Wednesday, October 3, T’S HARD TO feel sorry for B.C. Tel. Here’s a monopoly with its’ head office in Stanford, Conn., with a record of troubled labor relations that goes back a long way. Massive utilities are just not as cuddly as teddy bears. But now we have the spec- tacle of B.C. Tel cast in the unlikely role of defender of the litthe guy. My natural reflexes are to carp about the communications monohth’s abuse of its privileges, but this time [’m not quite sure where to plant the boot. Big may normally be bad and monopoly always smells funny. But the telecom- Munications system in Canada is so weird that, fora change, it seems that the big bad old telephone monopolies may actually be doing something right. Corporate policies tend to be Chinese boxes within boxes, so how can anybody outside the boardroom really know what the battle plan is? Nevertheless, it seems to me that both B.C. Tel and Bell Canada had a very good case when they complained to the Canadians Radio- television and Telecom- munications Commission at the recent hearings in Van- 1984 - North Shore News strictly personal a by Bob Hunter couver that open competition in the long-distance market would push them into a posi- tion where they’d have to hike local telephone rates, or, worse, introduce the dreaded ‘‘local measured service’’ (LMS). Officials at CNCP Telecommunicauions, whose application to break the long- distance monopoly enjoyed by the other two companies was what triggered the CRTG hearings, tell me that I’ve got it ‘tall wrong,’’ that in fact CNCP is doing a great service for us all. When I tried to get back to a senior executive to hear his side of the case, ! couldn't reach him — because CNCP's office staff had gone on strike. I have to accept at face value B.C. Tel’s assertion that the company = spends about $350 million from its long distance revenues to subsidize the flat-rate local calls that we all take for granted. Bell Canada says its flat-rate subsidy is about $1.2 billion a year. Given that both com- panies’ shareholders would go ape if management didn’t keep the bottom line firmly fixed in view, I don't see how any telephone company could operate forever without profits, unless you Five jailed for armed robbery NORTH VANC OL VER ROMP have arrested tive people three men and two women after an armed robbery outside the North Vancouser White Spot carly Saturdays The tive were arrested as they deft the parking lot of the White Spot after robbing Iwo employees of a stmiall amount of mone, The ounvident happened shortly after boat as thre two cmplovees deft Che res taurant at 2vted Street and Lonsdale at clostag tinic They were contromted ty four peaple one of therm armed with a pellet pun HEADQUARTERS For the North Shore INCREDIBLE SELECTION BUY WITH CONFIOENCE sot yit ALIVE hans FANE INL b vOWI ' con VE SS we vi ES viva Dir FERENCE -OLONY HOME FURNISHINGS Warehouse/Showroom OPEN TQ THE PUBLIC (2 Dika. bahind the Avalon) at 1076 Roosevelt Cres N Van and robbed of the amount of small money, mostly couns, they were carrying As the thievés attempted to leave the parking lot, they were spotted by a passing polioeman, who pulled them over and took four of the people mto custods A fitth. whe tled the area, was located by a police tracking dog and also at rested for the robbers Charges against the tive Iwo of them jyuvenrtes - ate pending FIGURE PROBLEM? sear Ps Se ohertifist ‘ Peralta) yea eet set " FY es ay) ! epoura treba Mtg at i, ee EO prer wide wee teghe! teh ite be toss ath ee thealite retcdiae fhe ae af aaa Mutyes breattao bes Adena youl thigtis foal re } Olan ptr re es anid special partes ons Naboo Theatitrerits Pee tive hetto tia. arnt paare hase want to bring the government in. And who in their right mind would want to do that? The preliminary CRTC hearings in Vancouver didn’t produce any surprises. Nor does anybody really expect to hear anything new when the hearings resume in Quebec next month. CNCP happens to have a_ state-of-the-art communications system developed in the course of creating a railway, and it naturally would like to put all this high tech to profitable use. CNCP says it can offer long distance rates at 10 to 20 per cent less than the ‘“‘un- necessarily high rates’’ charged by Ma Bell and B.C. Tel. Canadians would somehow get ‘the benefits of competition.’’ The question is: which Canadians? The answer is: corporations with huge long- distance telephone bills. If the established telephone companies lose their strictly- regulated monopolies, they'll abandon their subsidies to the ordinary home user, which means that you, me, and Aunt Manulda will be shelling out twice, maybe three times as much to make local calis, with a meter tick- ing away just as it does in a taxi. Behind aj! the shuffling and grunting of telecommun- ications behemoths there lies the fact of deregulation hav- ing taken place in the U.S., whicky has, indeed, led to lower long distance rates. And Canadian companies are increasingly bypassing our own telephone network to place calls through the States. Sooner or later, this 1s go- ing to force B.C. Tel and Ma Bell to boost their local call prices anyway, CNCP argues. Why not get on with iw? Because the little guy will get hurt, no doubt about it. What’s the rush? So here | am, along with a lot of other surprised individuals, on B.C. Tel’s side in the debate. 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