. SEP - 8 1975
BRITISH COLUMBIA TELEPHONE COMPANY

80~ 6TH STREET, NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. V3L 4Z5 TELEPHONE: 524-3711 AREA CODE 604

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PLEASE ADDRESS YOUR REPLY : ;
TO THE UNDERSIGNED August 26, 1975

The Corporation of the
City of Port Coquitlam
2272 McAllister Avenue
Port Coquitlam, B. C.
V3c 248

Attention: Mr. L. D. Pollock, City Administrator
Dear Sir:

This is further to your letter of August 15, 1975, addressed to
our Mr. Bouwman, concerning our operations in your municipality.

As you know, maintaining agencies in various locations to fac-
ilitate the payment of telephone bills has been a feature of
telephone service for years. Up to very recently, this has been
maintained at Company expense, being paid for by all customers,

_and essentially a hidden part of the cost of providing telephone
service.

- The cost of providing this service has been rising very rapidly.
In 1974, it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and with
the present rate of increasing costs, it could be anticipated that
shortly it would have been over one million dollars. ,

We, as you are in your municipal administration, are making every
attempt to control cost increases, so that the inevitable rate
increases to our consumers will be lower than they would be other-
wise. Correspondingly, early in 1975, we enclosed pre~addressed
envelopes with our telephone bills so that customers can pay their
bills directly to the Company.

This arrangement has turned out to be very popular ~~~ a majority
of our customers now use this. Since then, we have discontinued
paying for the maintainance of the payment facilities in local
businesses, as it is decidedly unfair and unjust to expect all of
the customers to pay for a service that is used only by a minority.
However, for those that still wish to pay to a store or authorized
agency, they can still do so, with the agency charging them for

their work.

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