Telcos Balk Against California’s New Basic Service Proposal
The California Public Utilities Commission decided to hold off on establishing a new definition of residential basic phone service. “We're not voting on that today,” President Michael Peevey said Thursday at the CPUC meeting. CPUC members have submitted three proposals on a new basic service definition in 2012 -- one from Peevey in February, an alternative proposal from Commissioner Michel Florio in July, and a revised alternate version Oct. 9 (CD Oct 12 p6). The latest proposal was included on the Thursday meeting agenda. Industry and consumer advocates weighed in with mid-October reply comments in the week prior to the meeting with additional concerns that the Florio proposal, even with revisions, may falter in delivering the CPUC’s basic service goals.
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The revised alternate basic service proposal should be “rejected or significantly revised because it is unlawful, to the extent it creates multiple definitions of basic service that vary based on a provider’s status as an ILEC, CLEC, wireless company, or VoIP provider, or whether the provider is offering a Lifeline,” Verizon said (http://xrl.us/bnvzyt). Verizon attacked ambiguities in the “self-contradictory” proposal and said it “reverses years of Commission precedent without any discussion or analysis.” Like Verizon, Cox said the CPUC attempt to create a single new definition of basic service has created multiple ones: “This flexibility appears to effectively result in two definitions of basic service -- one provided by COLRs [carriers of last resort] and one provided by non-COLRs” (http://xrl.us/bnvz47). The CPUC should allow “providers that are not COLRs to offer Lifeline service without being required to offer ‘basic service’ to all residential customers,” which would create a single definition, Cox said.
The proposal’s revisions “are not sufficient to ensure that wireless carriers can enter the California Lifeline (or COLR) market,” CTIA said, opting for an earlier CPUC proposal (http://xrl.us/bnvz7s). The idea that a wireless carrier offering Lifeline has to provide service in a customer’s home is a “stringent requirement,” it said. “Wireless carriers do not have service technicians that visit customers’ homes.” Imposing service quality standards on wireless is also “unwarranted,” it added. AT&T supports the earlier Peevey proposal as well, despite being “imperfect,” it said. The revised Florio proposal “continues to fall short” and is “problematic” in its multiple definitions resulting in “regulatory uncertainty and widespread confusion,” the telco said (http://xrl.us/bnvz7d). This latest version “requires COLRs to adhere to outdated wireline-centric elements of basic service” and prevents wireless carriers from becoming COLRs, it said. “The very idea of a wireline ‘backstop’ represents poor public policy and will ultimately harm Californians,” AT&T said.
Charter Fiberlink criticized the language surrounding white pages directory distribution and asked the CPUC to recognize that “the competitive communications industry primarily relies on interconnection agreements with ILECs for compliance with the obligation to provide directories” (http://xrl.us/bnvz38).
"COLRs should not have the ability to shirk this requirement to serve areas where offering reliable service may be difficult or expensive merely by allowing the customer to cancel his or her service,” consumer advocates said (http://xrl.us/bnvz9s). “This ‘right’ to cancellation is a poor substitute for the right to adequate service, especially in areas where options to obtain service from other affordable or reliable carriers are limited.” These petitioners, representing the National Consumer Law Center, the Greenlining Institute, The Utility Reform Network and the Center for Accessible Technology, generally praised the proposal’s revisions and “appropriate balance between the concerns expressed by industry and the needs of consumers.” The CPUC also makes too many assumptions that telcos will use higher-quality copper lines and should consider the likelihood of telcos switching to IP-based networks, the advocates said.
The alternate proposal’s October revisions are “a step backward from the strong pro-consumer approach of the original” July version, the CPUC’s ratepayer advocates division said (http://xrl.us/bnvz9j). But it still has “better protections and service safeguards for consumers” than the February Peevey proposal, it said. There shouldn’t be any distinguishing language between wireless and wireline companies in regards to providing 911, the advocates said.