Industry committee  This is an indicator. Of course, we examine this factor. However, it does not end there.

Industry committee  No. I said that this was one factor among other factors that we take into consideration.

Industry committee  It's early days of that, for sure. If you look at the penetration of Vonage, which is the name of one of these companies, you're going to be seeing that more and more in the marketplace, I think.

Industry committee  As I understand the package that's before the House right now, it's a package that is moving in a direction that would favour market forces, and it deals with various aspects of that. I'm not sure what you mean by “prudent”.

Industry committee  Generally speaking, I would say that the orientation of the various initiatives is toward greater reliance on market forces and the removal of regulation. That's certainly the direction we think we should move in.

Industry committee  These are very hard issues that we grapple with. There's no doubt that it is more expensive to serve people who live in rural areas. Generally speaking, we would support prices that are based on cost. There are other tools that the government can use if they want to redress some

Industry committee  I'm saying there are different costs to providing different services, and the price that is charged for a service should reflect the cost of providing that service.

Industry committee  They might in some circumstances, depending. What's very interesting about the evolution of telecommunications, and I think quite exciting from a competition perspective, is that there are new services being developed, such as applications that are actually independent of infrast

Industry committee  My understanding of the questions that have been asked on this to date is whether the policy direction would amount to being a breach of the Telecommunications Act. We're not responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Telecommunications Act, so I'd really not be

Industry committee  We're very supportive of an increased reliance on market forces in the telecommunications sector. This is a sector that is undergoing a huge change. It's a very dynamic sector. By relying on market forces, you have innovations like the development of an application to provide tel

Industry committee  Are you talking about the incumbent telephone company being able to increase?

Industry committee  Over the years, I think people have looked at this.

Industry committee  As I understand the proposal right now, there would be a freezing of the rates right now, so the rates could not go up. As I understand it from the minister's variation of the CRTC's decision, there would actually be a ceiling imposed.

Industry committee  We are independent of the government, the department, with respect to law enforcement. The crossover comes with respect to policy advice. I'm of two minds on this in the sense that we do have probably the greatest expertise with respect to competition policy. If one wanted to put

Industry committee  It's interesting to look at the evolution of competition in many markets. You're quite right that, generally speaking, competition begins in more concentrated urban markets and what not. Certainly one can see this in telecommunications in general. The introduction of long-distanc