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## (d) Aliant 

All debentures and notes are unsecured. The bonds ($185 million in 2004 and 2003) are secured by deeds of trust and mortgage, and by supplemental deeds. 

These instruments contain a first fixed and specific mortgage, a pledge and charge upon all real and tan- gible property and equipment, which includes inven- tory and all capital investments except software, and all rights and licences related to that property of Aliant Telecom Inc. The bonds also provide, based on province of issue, a floating charge on all future real and tangible property of Aliant Telecom Inc. and all revenues and proceeds derived from that property. 

Aliant has a floating interest rate through a swap agreement of $100 million of debt. 

## (e) Bell Globemedia 

Assets of CTV and one of its subsidiaries, CTV Specialty Television Inc. (CTV Specialty), are collateral for these agreements. $95 million of the short-term advances were repaid to BCE Inc. in January 2005 ($450 million were repaid to Bell Canada in January 2004). These were replaced with long-term debt under existing long-term facilities. CTV and CTV Specialty have fixed interest rates through swap agreements on $95 million of bank debt. 

## (f) Unamortized Premium 

Represents the unamortized purchase price allocated to long-term debt resulting from BCE’s repurchase of SBC Communications Inc.’s 20% interest in Bell Canada Holdings Inc. 

## Restrictions 

Some of the debt agreements: 

• require us to meet specific financial ratios 

• impose covenants, maintenance tests and new issue tests 

• restrict the payment of dividends 

• restrict how we can dispose of Bell Canada voting shares. 

We are in compliance with all conditions and restrictions. 

## Note 19 : Other Long-Term Liabilities 

<img src='content_image/69291.jpg'>

## Note 20 : Financial Instruments 

## Using Derivatives 

We use derivative instruments to manage our expo- sure to interest rate risk, foreign currency risk and changes in the price of BCE Inc. common shares. We do not use derivative instruments for speculative purposes. Since we do not trade actively in derivative instruments, we are not exposed to any significant liquidity risks relating to them. 

The following derivative instruments were out- standing at December 31, 2004: 

• cross-currency swaps and forward contracts that hedge foreign currency risk on a portion of our long- term debt 

• interest rate swaps that hedge interest rate risk on a portion of our long-term debt 

• forward contracts that hedge foreign currency risk on anticipated transactions 

• foreign debt designated to hedge a net investment in a foreign subsidiary 

• forward contracts on BCE Inc. common shares that hedge the fair value exposure related to SCPs. 

## Credit Risk 

We are exposed to credit risk if counterparties to our derivative instruments are unable to meet their obli- gations. We expect that they will be able to meet their obligations because we deal with institutions that have strong credit ratings and we regularly monitor our credit risk and credit exposure. 

There was no credit risk relating to derivative instruments at December 31, 2004. We are also exposed to credit risk from our customers, but the concentra- tion of this risk is minimized because we have a large and diverse customer base. 

