WIRELESS EXEMPTION URGED IN CAL. PUC CONSUMER BILL OF RIGHTS
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Cal. PUC’s proposed Consumer Bill of Rights is either vitally necessary to protect customers from wireless carriers’ predations or will raise rates, curb innovation and undercut competition, debaters argued Thurs. under the auspices of the Pacific Research Institute. Supporter James Conran and opponent Raymond Gifford applied classic arguments for and against govt. intervention. Conran is an FCC Consumer Advisory Council member and is Cal. Small Business Assn. chmn. and Consumers First pres. Gifford is Progress & Freedom Foundation pres. and former Colo. PUC chmn.
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The Bill of Rights, sponsored by PUC Comr. Carl Wood, would impose on all telecom providers obligations involving disclosure of service terms and conditions; standards for marketing materials; service initiation and changes; prepaid calling offerings; service deposits; bill readability, practices and disputes; change notices; termination; privacy and 911 service. The PUC is scheduled to vote on the measure Sept. 18. Wireless carriers have been particularly concerned about the Bill of Rights because wireless is lightly regulated in comparison to wireline.
Californians face uneven telecom customer service and difficulty resolving problems, Conran said. The regulations don’t single out wireless carriers, and such companies shouldn’t be exempt from requirements imposed on other service providers, he said. “They are not a sacred cow. They should not be treated any differently from any other part of the industry.” In addition to being blessed with new services, “consumers have also been lost in a sea of information, much of which has been useless,” he said. There’s a “loss of trust and faith” in the entire industry, Conran said. Speaking to a largely libertarian and business audience, he said regulations shouldn’t be rejected reflexively and this set was “minimal” in intrusiveness. He noted that SBC backed the Bill of Rights. “I expect it to become the rule of law in this state,” Conran said.
Cal.’s actions have national implications, Gifford said. Other states would like follow its lead, and Cal.’s sheer size makes it the de facto national standard, he said. He said Wood had failed to offer a rationale for the Bill of Rights; rather, it seemed to follow the logic: “We regulate telephones; this is a telephone; therefore, we have to regulate.”
Whatever problems consumers have are better left to a highly competitive market than to bureaucratic rules, Gifford said. Compliance with new rules would raise rates, he said. The fact that consumers aren’t saying they would voluntarily pay several extra dollars a month for a package of enhanced rates proves the Bill of Rights isn’t justified, he said. Gifford said that was consistent with consumers’ failure to read disclosures already available to them. Govt. rules can’t anticipate technology changes but they can allow big industry players to exploit them as barriers to competitors, he said. Besides, most abusive practices already are illegal, Gifford said.
Former PUC Pres. Mitchell Wilk and ex-chief of staff Carl Danner, both now with LECG litigation and policy consultants, decried potential abusive litigation from private rights of action in the Bill of Rights. “When the industry is harmed in an economic way, regardless of the intentions … consumers aren’t helped by that,” Wilk said.