5. Assignment of Proceeding
Rachelle B. Chong is the assigned Commissioner and Karl Bemesderfer is the assigned Administrative Law Judge in this proceeding.
1. All interstate carriers currently file multiple reports with the FCC including ARMIS reports.
2. In Phase I of this proceeding, the Commission determined that most reports previously filed by carriers subject to state regulation, including so-called NRF-specific reports, were no longer necessary to the Commission's discharge of its statutory duties in a competitive market.
3. The Commission is able to obtain timely information about changes in the pricing of tariffed services from advice letters filed by carriers.
4. The Commission is able to obtain timely information about the nature and price of detariffed services from carrier-specific price lists posted on carriers' websites, as required by our detariffing rules.
5. The Commission will be able to obtain information about the status of competition through the carriers' filings of FCC ARMIS and non-ARMIS Reports.
6. The Commission will obtain detailed information about broadband subscription through the DIVCA Reports as well as through reports filed with the FCC.
7. The FCC has opened dockets to consider petitions from incumbent local exchange carriers requesting forbearance from the requirement of filing one or more ARMIS reports.
8. The Commission has opposed the forbearance petitions in comments filed with the FCC.
9. The FCC is reviewing the issue of interstate special access in WC Docket No. 05-25, RM-10593.
10. CLECs and IXCs have already had pricing flexibility for special access services.
11. The Commission adopted a comprehensive consumer protection regime in D.06-03-013.
12. The Commission established additional consumer protection rules in its LEP proceeding R.07-01-021.
13. The Commission is considering additional consumer protection rules in its cramming docket R.00-02-004.
14. The Commission enforced § 2896(a) of the Pub. Util. Code by requiring additional consumer protection disclosures in a specific case.
1. ARMIS and other reports filed with the FCC, together with data gathered by Commission staff and advice letters that continue to be filed with the Commission, provide adequate information for the Commission to meet its statutory obligations and exercise effective regulatory oversight.
2. No additional monitoring reports should be required of URF Carriers at this time.
3. The Commission should not deregulate retail special access at this time.
4. In D.07-09-018, we stated that services that were "not granted full pricing flexibility in D.6-08-030" are not eligible for detariffing; that sentence was intended to prevent URF Carriers from detariffing services that are subject to pricing restrictions. We did not intend to prevent URF Carriers from detariffing retail services that have full pricing flexibility.
5. IXCs and CLECs may detariff their special access services, but may not impose use or user restrictions on such service offerings.
6. No additional consumer protection disclosures are required at this time.
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. No additional monitoring reports are required of any carrier subject to Commission jurisdiction at this time.
2. There are no changes in the Commission's pricing regulations for retail special access services at this time.
3. No additional consumer protection disclosures are required at this time.
4. The deadline for Uniform Regulatory Framework Carriers to file to detariff their existing services is extended to September 12, 2009.
5. If the Federal Communications Commission grants the pending or future Automatic Reporting Management Information System (ARMIS) report forbearance petitions, the incumbent local exchange carriers are required to continue to file with this Commission the California-specific information from the ARMIS reports, until we determine in a new phase of this proceeding that the ARMIS report information is necessary on a going-forward basis for this Commission to achieve its statutory objectives under Pub. Util. Code § 709(a) for assuring the continued affordability and widespread availability of high-quality telecommunications services to all Californians, under our uniform regulatory framework.
6. Rulemaking 05-04-005 is closed.
This order is effective today.
Dated September 4, 2008, at San Francisco, California.
MICHAEL R. PEEVEY
President
DIAN M. GRUENEICH
JOHN A. BOHN
RACHELLE B. CHONG
TIMOTHY ALAN SIMON
Commissioners
I will file concurrence.
/s/ DIAN M. GRUENEICH
Commissioner
Uniform Regulatory Framework Phase II
Concurrence of Commissioner Dian M. Grueneich
This decision addresses the issues of special access, consumer protections, and monitoring. I support the decision's finding that the Commission should not deregulate pricing for retail special access. I agree that there is insufficient evidence to compel us to change our current rules. While modifications made to the decision addressed some of my concerns on the issues of monitoring, I remain troubled by other provisions in the decision regarding monitoring as well as a lack of further consumer protection.
In 2006, when the Commission adopted its Consumer Protection Initiative, I dissented because it did not contain sufficient requirements to protect consumers and instead relied overwhelmingly on voluntary actions by telephone companies and transferred the responsibility of educating consumers from the carriers to the Commission and consumers themselves. While today's decision falls under the Uniform Regulatory Framework proceeding, it also serves to further implement the Commission's current policy to use education in place of regulation to protect consumers. As in 2006, I am disappointed to find that there are no specific recommendations for additional consumer protections in this decision, especially in light of detariffing actions by the carriers.
Regarding monitoring issues, I voted to support the Phase I decision in the Uniform Regulatory Framework proceeding because I agreed that the Commission needed to simplify and modernize California's outdated regulatory framework. But I was concerned about a lack of safeguards in the decision, especially for low income customers. Once again my concern lies with safeguards for consumers. The Commission continues to move, in my opinion, too far away from its monitoring responsibilities. In order to ensure that our policies and processes are working, we must require reporting of the information we need to judge performance and consumer protection.
I agree with the decision's finding that current reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), together with data gathered by Commission staff, provide adequate information for the Commission to meet its statutory obligations ... not complete, but adequate. More importantly, I find unconvincing carrier statements that these same reports that two years ago the carriers placed such a profound value to the commission have suddenly become outdated and of little to no value to the Commission. I am pleased that -- at this time -- we are not persuaded by the carriers' statements and that the decision requires carriers to continue providing ARMIS reports to the Commission should the FCC forbear from any of these reports. The ARMIS data, while not a complete picture, provides us with a snapshot to look at the telecommunications industry in California. At the very least, we need this snapshot to perform our basic monitoring responsibilities.
