California PUC to Unify Two Proposed Basic Service Definitions

"The FCC -- and this is important, consumers -- has predicted that public switched telephone networks will end around the year 2018,” CPUC Commissioner Timothy Simon said at the meeting. “The migration’s occurring. And what we need to do is to make sure that these basic service and LifeLine customers are in that migration and know how to operate within that new world of technology, not maintaining a mentality that is still landline.” The CPUC should “come together” to make “a statement to this country and the world” with a unified decision on the basic service definition, he said. Mobility is “transformative technology” and consumers should have knowledge and choice and access in these low-income programs, Simon said. “We should open our LifeLine program to Internet service as well.” He’s in “utter disgust” at the number of years it’s taken to update this definition and the state’s outreach to get low-income residents phone service.

The two proposals initially had “significant differences,” but they're now “much closer together,” Commissioner Michel Florio said. He created the second proposed definition and said he didn’t disagree with any goals CPUC President Michael Peevey, responsible for the first proposed decision, described at the meeting. Florio suggested CPUC members take a “few more weeks” to unify the proposals. Peevey said he’s “certainly agreeable” with the caution that unanimity “may not happen,” and commissioners agreed to hold off on voting on the motion. The CPUC will address basic service again at its Dec. 20 meeting.

Florio’s alternate proposal has stronger consumer protections, Commissioner Mark Ferron said. Given revisions to both proposals, they're “beginning to split hairs” in parsing the differences, he said. “It feels to me as if we are very close.” He warned against allowing basic consumer protections to be “needlessly degraded.” Simon was equally concerned and warned against pegging the definition to landline standards. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I think that’s what we're looking at,” he said. Commissioner Catherine Sandoval distinguished between allowing the LifeLine program to include wireless and adopting a new definition for basic service. The definition is often considered “a predicate to what we do in LifeLine,” but the definition and the basis for LifeLine are not necessarily the same, she said. She praised the convergence of the two proposals: “We do see in both of them an agreement that basic telephone service continue to work in at least one room of the house.” Carriers should no longer be able to tell customers to “simply go outside” if they provide basic service and there’s no signal in the house, she said. Pew Internet & American Life Project data released Sunday (http://xrl.us/bn3379) “further validates” the CPUC’s need to make its rules acknowledge wireless technology, Peevey said. Pew reports that 85 percent of U.S. adults own a cellphone and use them to do more than make calls.

Several dozen speakers kicked off the meeting with public comment in support of the Florio basic service proposal. They were mainly tenant organizers and low-income advocates and spoke of the vital nature of LifeLine. Lantana Jones said her son couldn’t call 911 from home when she was being beaten by another man in the residence, and so used a neighbor’s LifeLine phone. Mental Health Board of San Francisco Secretary David Elliott Lewis framed affordable, technology-neutral LifeLine as a “mental health issue.” Simon questioned the speakers who left after their public comments. “To come in here scripted and to make the allegation that the proposed decision is a threat to a landline phone coming into a low-income housing community is just simply inaccurate,” he said. “And I question the motivation of those who would sponsor or prompt that type of public comment.” Peevey described “misinformation about the proceeding” and clarified that the proposals don’t change rates, take away LifeLine service or reduce access to 911.