NARUC said a CTIA voluntary consumer code to be unveiled next mon...

commissioner, said CTIA’s work in that area was “commendable” but “the ideas in both of our resolutions will certainly improve the industry’s work. We strongly encourage CTIA to incorporate all the ideas and principles in those resolutions into its code.” State regulators have been evaluating wireless best practices as a possible means of averting service quality regulation. NARUC has been meeting with regulators and carriers on the issue and the wireless industry has been working on its own voluntary guidelines for best practices that would help customers compare factors such as service coverage across different companies. In May, the General Accounting Office recommended the FCC begin collecting service quality data in its annual report on the state of mobile wireless competition. CTIA plans to release its voluntary consumer code Sept. 9 in Washington. Wise, joined by Mich. Comr. Robert Nelson, chmn. of NARUC’s telecom committee, and Cal. Comr. Carl Wood, consumer affairs committee chmn., wrote to CTIA Pres. Tom Wheeler Tues. They suggested CTIA fold the principles of NARUC’s resolutions on wireless service quality into its voluntary code, starting with a NARUC resolution on carrier billing practices. They said the NARUC resolution “indicates clearly that carriers should be permitted to require consumers to pay a special purpose charge associated with a program or service that the government mandates the provider to provide to customers.” That recommendation included caveats that invoices should differentiate between charges imposed by a provider to recover the costs of meeting a govt. mandate and “those special purpose and other charges that are imposed or mandated by law.” It also proposed that providers collect no more than the cost of a particular mandate and account for how revenue from such charges was used. “A portion of the revenues collected relating to enhanced 911 or number portability should be refunded if any of those requirements are eliminated or overturned,” the NARUC recommendation said. A 2nd NARUC resolution IT suggested for inclusion supported the use of certain wireless best practices and a joint FCC, state and industry effort to examine voluntary “consumer- focused service quality standards.”