A report prepared by the region’s finance department says it could take as long as five years before Bell Canada would even consider a request to provide local calling between all nine area municipalities.
While much of the southern part of the region is a local calling area and even includes service to Toronto, Newmarket and points north are not part of the area. Toronto has seamless local calling capabilities within all six of the former municipalities within Metro Toronto but the report says there are 40 applications from other municipalities already awaiting the results of a pilot project in Ottawa. And the CRTC has suggested a regionwide local calling area could result in increased charges for local service to compensate telecommunications couriers for lost revenue of The report suggests regional council should request the service from Bell Canada and encourages each area municipality to pass similar resolutions.