ALJ/JLG/avs DRAFT Agenda ID #3433
Adjudicatory
5/6/2004 Item 9
Decision DRAFT DECISION OF ALJ GRAU (Mailed 4/6/2004)
BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Raw Bandwidth Communications, Inc., Complainant, vs. SBC California, Inc. (U 1001 C) and SBC Advanced Solutions, Inc., (U 6346), Defendants. |
Case 03-05-023 (Filed May 15, 2003) |
OPINION RESOLVING COMPLAINT
I. Summary
In today's decision, we find that Pacific Bell Telephone Company (SBC California)1 and SBC Advanced Solutions, Inc. (SBC ASI) do not unreasonably discriminate against Raw Bandwidth Communications, Inc. (Raw Bandwidth) or otherwise violate applicable law by certain of Defendants' practices as they affect Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services.
Specifically, this complaint concerns the situation in which the telephone subscriber receives basic service from one carrier (here, Defendant SBC California) and DSL service from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that is unaffiliated with the carrier providing basic service. The Complainant and Defendants have managed to settle many of the problems underlying the original complaint. Two problems remain and are before us today.
The first problem arises when the carrier providing basic service terminates that service to the subscriber for nonpayment. Our rules require advance notice to the subscriber before termination. Raw Bandwidth argues that the carrier providing basic service must give substantially the same advance notice to the ISP (DSL service provider), which effectively will no longer be able to provide DSL service upon termination of the subscriber's basic service.2 The assigned ALJ granted the Defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint insofar as it seeks to impose this additional notice requirement, and Raw Bandwidth has appealed the ALJ's ruling. We affirm the dismissal, albeit our reasoning differs slightly from that of the ruling, but we direct Defendants to negotiate this notice requirement with Raw Bandwidth.
The second problem (the alleged unreasonable discrimination) arises when the subscriber calls repair (611) for a question or difficulty with DSL service. Often, the subscriber calls the carrier providing basic service, but in this situation, responding to the question or difficulty generally will be the responsibility of the ISP, to whom, consequently, the subscriber is referred. The manner of the referral is the crux of the complaint in this regard. The Defendants
currently enable the subscriber to be connected without redialing to the service department of the ISP when the ISP is an affiliate of Defendant SBC California. (In other words, the subscriber does not have to hang up and call the affiliated ISP directly). Raw Bandwidth, which is an unaffiliated ISP, wants SBC California to do substantially the same thing for Raw Bandwidth's subscriber, i.e., to offer to automatically connect those subscribers to Raw Bandwidth's service department whenever they call dial 611 with a DSL question or difficulty. We hold that, in this situation, differential treatment of subscribers is lawful; in other words, the fact that a subscriber to Raw Bandwidth's DSL service must hang up and call Raw Bandwidth's service department directly does not violate applicable state or federal law.
1 Although the complaint named SBC California, Inc. as a defendant, the correct name for the legal entity is Pacific Bell Telephone Company, which also does business as SBC California. 2 Raw Bandwidth purchases DSL Transport from SBC ASI using a line sharing arrangement. When voice service is disconnected by SBC California, line sharing no longer is viable. SBC California initially suspends dial tone for five days for nonpayment of basic service charges and then disconnects the line.
