}
:
;

BRITISH COLUMBIA TELEPHONE COMPANY

EXTENDED AREA SERVICE (EAS)

(DIRECT QUOTE)

BACKGROUND :

Historically, Extended Area Service (EAS) has been defined
as interexchange telephone service between two or more
exchange areas at flat or measured exchange service rates.
In short, EAS referred to the elimination of long distance
charges between two or more communities. Rather than paying
long distance charges for each call placed, customers in
communities having EAS would be able to place or receive an
uniimited number of calls for a monthly rental charge.

Consequently, in their desire to avoid the cost of long
distance calls, telephone customers throughout the Province
place a high value upon FAS and demands for new and expanded
FAS offerings are doth frequent and insistent. In some
cases (and this is particularly true in the Metropolitan
Area of Greater Vancouver), this demand is an outcrop of
urbanization; people moving out of the densely populated
"core" area to the suburbs (and beyond), where, for social
and other reasons, they want to retain their (core)
toll-free calling privileges. In other cases, however,
there exists small rural communities which depend upon other
(usually larger) communities for the satisfaction of basic
needs such as medical, education, employment, shopping,
emergency and government services.

For communities such as these, then, the provisioning of EAS
makes it possible for residents to reach basic essential
services without paying long distance charges.

Unfortunately, the quantity and ramifications cf demands for
FAS have made it necessary to limit its availability. From
the company perspective, FAS is a costly affair. Not only
is it necessary to install the additional switches and
circuits required to accommodate the increased calling that
results when long distance charges are removed, but as well,
there is the corresponding joss of toll revenue, which is a
significant element in the financial support of local
exchange rates. Although EAS does lead to additional
revenues from increased monthly exchange service charges, in
net terms it is still far from 4 profitable enterprise.

THE NEW EAS PHILOSOPHY:

As a result of this study, a new format for EAS was
developed. EAS will, in the future, only be granted on a

one way, ooint-to-point . basis. Further, EAS will be
restricted to those cas2s where cne community (usualy a
small, rural communicy), depends upon another comminity

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