3. Procedural History

Both the effective date for the dialer prohibitions and the date by which the "acceptable error rate" must be adopted are July 1, 2002.

To meet that date, the Commission required opening comments by March 14, 2002, and reply comments by March 25, 2002, with a proposed decision scheduled to be issued on or before May 6, 2002. On April 11, 2002, the Assigned Commissioner's Scoping Memo and Ruling categorized this proceeding as "quasi-legislative" and determined that formal hearings would not be conducted. The Scoping Memo established the following issues to be considered in this proceeding:

1. What should be the acceptable error rate for automatic dialers that are the subject of AB 870?

2. When receiver is off-hook, within how many seconds must a live operator respond or automatic dialer disconnect?

3. What rules should be adopted regarding the establishment, retention and access to business records for calls covered by AB 870?

4. Should workshops be scheduled to further consider record-keeping requirements and the need for a public information campaign?

Comments have been filed by the American Teleservices Association (ATA); AT&T Communications of California, Inc. (AT&T); the California Attorney General (Attorney General); the California Newspaper Publishers Association (Publishers); the Consumer Coalition, a joint filing by The Utility Reform Network (TURN), the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN), and the Commission's Office of Ratepayer Advocates; the California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA); Pacific Bell Telephone Company (Pacific); Private Citizen, Inc. (PCI); Sprint Communications Company L.P. (Sprint); Sytel Limited (Sytel); Verizon California, Inc. (Verizon); and WorldCom, Inc. (WorldCom). A summary of these comments is affixed to this decision as an Attachment.