4. Supplemental Comments From CTIA
On August 6, 2010, CTIA filed and served its supplement comments which included a proposed set of reporting rules for wireless carriers.73 CTIA explained that the wireless parties to this proceeding74 had developed an alternative to General Order 168 that would be applicable only to wireless carriers. The proposal called for the wireless carries to submit after-the-fact reports on termination or suspension of "campaigns or short codes" and any campaign or codes that have customer refund rates that exceed 15% for two consecutive months and $5,000/month. Such reports may be for aggregated national or California-specific data, at the election of the wireless billing telephone corporation. The proposal also called for annual reports to CPSD on the blocking options offered and any charges imposed. Finally, the proposal included workshops to enhance customer education.
On August 16, 2010, TURN and DRA replied in opposition to CTIA's proposal.75 TURN stated that the CTIA "reporting proposals personify the worst aspects of poor regulation - reports that serve no purpose to demonstrate an appearance of protecting consumers."76 Specifically, TURN argued that the CTIA proposal was deficient in that it only applied to Premium short messaging service (SMS) campaigns and/or short codes and was "toothless" in that the proposal had no requirement for mandatory termination of such providers that place unauthorized charges on subscribers' bills.77 TURN concluded that the CTIA proposal also failed to fulfill the requirements of Pub. Util. Code § 2889.9(d) which mandates that billing telephone companies and billing agents must report "complaints made by subscribers."78
DRA submitted detailed comments that thoroughly analyzed the CTIA proposal and concluded that the Commission should summarily dismiss the proposal as procedurally improper and substantively fatally flawed.79 DRA explained that the CTIA proposal consisted largely of subjective reports that would be useless for the Commission's enforcement efforts without any mandatory requirements prohibiting the placement of unauthorized charges on subscribers' bills. These proposed reports, DRA concluded, failed to meet the statutory requirement that carriers report subscriber complaints of third-party billing for unauthorized charges.80
73 The Assigned Commissioner informally authorized this filing, with the understanding that other parties would have an opportunity to file reply comments.
74 AT&T, Spring/Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and Cricket.
75 AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Cricket also filed reply comments in support of their joint proposal with CTIA.
76 TURN Reply Comments to CTIA Proposal at 4.
77 Id. at 5.
78 Id.
79 DRA Reply Comments to CTIA Proposal at 6.
80 Id. at 6 - 10.
