The Service Improvement Plan (SIP) was a program, during the years 2001–2009, mandated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to provide a defined level of basic telephone service to all Canadians, other than those so isolated that it is costly and impractical to reach. The companies completed the programs in the middle of the 2000-2009 decade, with a cut-off of availability to customers in 2007 or 2008 (Customers who did not act on the program must now bear the full cost of service improvement). Origin The process leading to SIP actually had its origins with an application on October 15, 1996 by Sprint Canada (owned by Call-Net) for an order by the CRTC to Northwestel to interconnect for long-distance service. On February 28, 1997, the CRTC denied the application, but started a public proceeding to determine if NorthwesTel's service area should have long-distance competition. As a result of public hearings during 1997 on the issue, it became evident to the CRTC that there were locations that considered their phone service to be inferior. The CRTC issued Public Notice 97-42, Service to High Cost Serving Areas (PN 97-42). The objective was to hold hearings across Canada to determine a definition of basic service and to define high cost serving areas. The CRTC held regional consultations on the issues of PN 97-42 in eight locations from Whitehorse, Yukon to Deer Lake, Newfoundland and Labrador during May and June 1998, and received comments and submissions from the public, telephone companies and other organizations. In some locations, video conferencing or audio conferencing brought additional communities into the regional consultations. On October 19, 1999, the CRTC issued Telecom Decision 99-16], defining basic service as including security features such as Caller ID, local dial-up connectivity to the Internet, access to long-distance service, among other things. The CRTC also found that Northwestel's operating area was entirely a high-cost serving area, and that supplementary funding may be required to raise the level of phone service and to maintain that service in the face of competition. Most incumbent local exchange carrier phone companies in Canada were ordered to submit Service Improvement Plans in order to bring all of their customers up to the basic service objective, and to provide service to unserved customers. Among the companies affected by this order were Northwestel, Bell Canada, Telus, MTS of Manitoba, NewTel of Newfoundland, SaskTel of Saskatchewan and Telebec of