As I said earlier, we have an obligation to serve everywhere. So every time there's a new house built, we have an obligation to provide a line to that house as part of our regulatory obligations. As I said, it's an interesting obligation, given that in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia 10% of those homes don't actually take service, even though we have a line into them.
So everywhere there's a home we have an obligation to provide service to that home, and to date the CRTC has regulated every element of that service, not just the price but the quality. We have quality of service measures that apply to the provision of our service on a retail basis in terms of installation, repair times, time to answer phones at our call centres, and so on. Every aspect of our service is regulated, so you don't cut quality, because that aspect of our service is regulated today and there are penalties that apply for failure to meet those quality of service obligations.
So I don't believe that in the absence of competition there is any threat at all to customers, because they are completely protected under the regulatory umbrella today. I don't think customers in rural and remote regions are at any risk of abandonment or deterioration of service. Having said that, where competition is more intense, we want to be able not just to watch customers walk out the door because we can't respond to competitive entry, but to be able to offer innovative packages to them.
Does that mean we're going to limit the benefits of competition to those customers and not try to bring those innovative services and products to customers in all parts of our territory? I think competition will bring benefits to all customers and not just those who happen to live in the regions where the competitor has entered.