Tomorrow a very important consultation will take place. If we were to judge its importance by the lack of coverage provided by the local media, the Reference Interconnection Offer Oral Presentation may just be considered one of many routine events which will occur tomorrow in Barbados. For those Barbadians who are interested you should go to the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre tomorrow Friday, June 19th 2009 between 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m to support those Intervenors who will be presenting oral presentations. We are pleased to note that once again BU family members Chris Halsall and Roosevelt King (ROK) et al will perform in the role of Intervenor operating in the interest of the PEOPLE.
If we understand the objective of the hearing correctly the outcome of the process should eventually lead to an operationalization of a RIO policy to ensure local competitive long distance providers – Sunbeach, Blue Communications, and TeleBarabdos who have been trying to purchase the required interconnecting circuits from the Cable & Wireless without success, even through they are clearly defined within the Policy is achieved.
BU would have addressed in an earlier blog some of the issues affecting its non-implementation of key aspects of the RIO as it relates to a standard offer for services which LIME must make available to any and all requesting competitive telephony carriers. Unfortunately, the previous versions lacked a definition for “Outgoing International Call Termination”. This meant that while a carrier could bring calls into Barbados, they were not allowed to take them out.
We take this opportunity to clarify an erroneous position which was posted on May 31, 2009 under the heading The Reference Interconnection Offer And Consumers penned by Hallam Hope. In that posting Mr. Hope indicated that the Fair Trading Commission had given 8 days to the Intervenors to provide a written summary and submit to all parties.
It is BU’s understanding under the Act 64 (7):
Where by reason of an inability or insufficient time to study an application or other document initiating the proceeding, a person is unable to include the information required in the letter of the intervention that person shall:
(a) state this fact in the letter of intervention as filed and served under rule 64 (5); and
(b) within:
(i) 5 business days of receipt of a copy of the written evidence, or
(ii) 15 business days of filing of the letter of intervention, or within 3 business days after the issues have been formulated by the Commission,
(iii) 3 business days after the issues have been formatted by the Commission, whichever is later, re-file and serve the letter of intervention with the information required by rule 64(6)
In a nutshell the FTC has to give time if asked. The practice when you file your letter of intervention, you simply state that you reserve the right to enter evidence, interrogatories, or whatever is required and you do not need to file a second letter of intervention, just submit what was missing. This is what BU has been made to understand from correspondence we have received.
Unfortunately Mr. Hope has not seen it fit to respond to our prompting to clarify this matter. If Mr. Hope wishes to challenge our clarification we would welcome it. Good luck to him also at the RIO Hearing tomorrow.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.